메인 > 영어게시판 > Overview of 2010 IP in Korea

In 2010, while the overall number of IPR applications filed was 362,074, a decrease of 0.8 percent from 364,990 applications of the previous year, Korea had the fourth largest number of IPR applications in the world. Of the 362,074 IPR applications filed in 2010, patent applications increased by 4.0 percent, from 163,523 to 170,101. Utility model applications decreased by 20.3 percent, from 17,114 to 13,661. Trademark and industrial design applications also decreased by 4.2 percent from 126,420 to 121,125 and by 1.7 percent from 57,903 to 57,187 respectively.

Korea's PCT applications displayed strong growth in 2010, with average annual growth rates of 15.6 percent from 2005 to 2010, and a continuous increase despite the most recent economic downturn. The overall number of PCT applications in 2010 was 9,639, an increase of 20.1 percent over the previous year, ranking Korea fifth in the world after the U.S., Japan, Germany and China.

By increasing request for international searches under the PCT and implementing policies focused on timely, high-quality examinations, the overall number of IPR applications examined by the first office action standard in 2010 was 292,908, an increase of 23.8 percent over the previous year (236,630). Since the number of applications for various rights is increasing along with the requests for PCT international searches, KIPO aims to accelerate the period for examinations and trials by adjusting the workload of examiner for each type of rights.

In 2010, the number of patent and utility model applications examined by the first office action standard increased by 30.7 percent to 137,940 (125,633 patent examinations and 12,307 utility model examinations). There was an annual increase of 33.2 percent for patents and 9.9 percent for utilities models. By the end of 2010, the first office action pendency period for patent and utility model examinations averaged 18.5 months and the average total pendency period to the final decision was 24.6 months

The trademark figures represent an annual decrease of 19.3 percent and the industrial design figures represent an annual increase of 15.8 percent. The examination period in 2010 averaged 10.6 months for trademarks and 10.0 months for industrial designs. Compared to the previous year, these figures represent an increase of approximately 1.6 months for trademarks and 1.0 months for industrial designs.

In order to maintain the pendency period for examination, we have recruited 69 examiners in 2010, bringing the total to 712 patent/utility-model examiners and 131 trademark/design examiners. KIPO plans to recruit a total of 301 new examiners, who are experts in the areas of technology, trademark, and design, by 2015.

In 2010, KIPO entrusted independent professional institutions with prior art searches for 64,484 cases of patent/utility-model application (representing 46.7% of the total number of examinations), exceeding the previous year by 4,702 cases. The results helped contribute to the overall acceleration of the examination process.KIPOe plans to outsource prior art searches for 81,500 cases of patent/utility-model application in 2011.

KIPO's current search system enables users to search domestic and overseas prior art quickly and with great accuracy. To ensure the quality control of patent technology data procured from foreign institutions, KIPO is running a separate organization solely committed to data quality control. In addition, data imported from outer sources is filtered through our refinement database, built to reinforce preliminary inspection, regularization, and processing of data errors, before being loaded into the database. Furthermore, in 2010 the 'Directive to Comply with KIPO Database Standard' was established as a means to control the quality of search data and complies with the data standards set up for developing information systems.

Although IP applications, except for patent applications, decreased in 2010, the total number of IPR registrations increased in 2010. The growth rates (9.6 percent) of IP registration are much bigger than those of IP applications in 2010.This can be explained by our efforts to shorten examination periods and the allocation of additional resources for processing applications.

Of the 159,977 IPR registrations in 2010, patents increased by 21.3percent, utility models increased by 8.9 percent and industrial designs increased by 5.0 percent, while trademarks remained at the same level as 2009.

In terms of nationality, residents of Korea obtained 128,838 registrations, while residents of foreign countries obtained 31,139 (19.5 percent) registrations.

Of the registrations by residents of foreign countries, the majority came from Japan (11,764 registrations, 37.8 percent) and the USA (6,233 registrations, 26.4 percent), with the two nations amounting to over 64 percent of the total.