메인 > 영어게시판 > KIPO to Cut Short the Examination Period through IP5 International Cooperation

At the Heads meeting of the five major IP offices (IP5) held in Tokyo, Japan, from June 23 to 24, the heads of the offices of Korea, the US, Europe, Japan, and China agreed to expand the sharing of examination results between the countries in order to shorten the examination period.

* The IP5 Heads meeting: Multilateral meeting held annually between the heads of patent offices of the Republic of Korea, the United States, Europe, Japan and China, of which share the accounting for 76 percent of total patent filings in 2008

** Participants: Commissioner Lee Soo-won of the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO), President Benoît Battistelli of the European Patent Office (EPO), Commissioner Yoshiyuki Iwai of the Japan Patent Office (JPO), Commissioner Tian Lipu of the State Intellectual Property Office of the People’s Republic of China (SIPO), Director General Francis Gurry of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and Deputy Director Teresa S. Rea of the U.S Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)

On the first day of the meeting, the IP5 agreed to unify the indispensable infrastructure for patent examination such as the different patent classifications, online systems, and examination practices, in order to expand cooperation for international patent harmonization and build an examination environment for common use.

If the IP5, which take up to 76 percent of the global patent applications, meet common examination standards, the examiners in each IP office may easily search information related to examinations conducted by other countries’ offices. As such, it would cut short the patent examination period and make examination results uniform across the offices.

For enhanced mutual cooperation, they agreed on the following objectives: to adopt a common hybrid classification; to cooperate on the information system to exchange and share their examination results; to hold workshops for the harmonization of examination practices; and to expand international cooperation.

KIPO Commissioner Lee Soo-won, who participated as the senior representative of Korea, said, “We plan to enhance cooperation on intellectual property in order to increase the efficiency and quality of patent examination and reduce duplication of work between the IP5 offices.” He continued, “Through efforts made for international harmonization of patent systems, applicants will get to acquire patents quickly and at low cost.”

In addition, on June 24, KIPO Commissioner Lee Soo-won and the USPTO Deputy Director Teresa Rea signed a Memorandum of Understanding agreeing to execute the International Patent Prosecution Highway (PCT-PPH) from July 1.

* Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH): Under the PPH, applicants can have preferential examination of their applications in the Office of First Filing (OFF) based on the positive examination results from the Office of Second Filing (OSF). Korea has implemented the PPH programs with a total of eight countries, that is, the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Finland, Russia and Denmark; and plans to apply it with Spain as well from July 1, 2011.

** Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT): The PCT is an international treaty administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) which offers patent applicants an advantageous route for seeking patent protection internationally.

*** PCT- Prosecution Highway (PCT-PPH): Under the PCT-PPH, an applicant can have preferential examination if an application under the PCT has been examined as a possible patent at the international level (PCT-PPH was first executed with the United States).

PCT-PPH is a system expanding the positive examination results acquired at the international level for preferential examination of PCT applications. If using the PCT-PPH, the examination period is expected to be shortened by over a year (from 18 months to 5 months). In addition, the PCT-PPH also uses the positive examination results as with PPH applications to possibly raise the chances of getting patent registrations more than general applications.

* The registration rate of general applications not using PPH was 64 percent in 2010, compared to 87 percent registration rate of those using PPH.

KIPO Commissioner Lee Soo-won said, “We will closely analyze in the future the outcome of the PCT-PPH between Korea and the United States, and review the expansion of the system with other countries.” He continued, “Given the era of the G20, Korea will cooperate within the IP5 framework to contribute to the formation of global IP policies in order to improve the IP systems for greater efficiency and convenience of applicants.”

The heads of IP5 offices participating in the meeting and the WIPO Director General agreed to hold the next IP5 Heads meeting in Europe in 2012.