Source: KIPO
Date: 2013. 8. 19
The Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO, Commissioner Kim, Young-min) announced that it is providing access to the One Portal Dossier (OPD) for examiners from August 12, to enable viewing of the examination progress information of family applications at the major IP offices.
* Family applications: patent applications translated into the languages of the relevant countries and submitted to foreign patent offices for the same invention.
Examiners using the OPD will simultaneously be able to view all examined documents related to applications, examinations, and registrations, including family applications submitted to the IP offices of the IP5 group (Korea, the United States, Japan, Europe, and China), and registration decision documents.
Before the OPD, examiners were saddled with the inconvenience of having to access information from each patent office separately in a bid to check any documents related to examination progress. The launch of the OPD will therefore provide a more effective examination environment.
In addition, the OPD will provide examination progress documents from China’s State Intellectual Property Office for efficient examination of Chinese patent applications.
The OPD project is one of the IT cooperation projects of the IP5, a forum of the world’s five largest IP offices launched in 2008, and its implementation was carried out under the motto of a“cyber patent office.”
KIPO completed development of the OPD in December 2012 and testing with foreign IP offices took place for around three months from April to June this year before it was finally opened for use.
The IP5 is also looking to open the OPD to the public in future.
As part of these efforts, the IP5 agreed, in principle, to open the service to the public during a meeting of the IP5 heads held in California in June 2012. The five countries are currently discussing which documents will be subject to disclosure, as well as the timing for release.
If the OPD is provided to the public, applicants will be able to check the examination direction in foreign IP offices, allowing them to draw up more effective strategies for foreign patent applications.