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Title | KIPO and the USPTO Jointly Cooperate to Enhance Patent Quality | ||||
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Writer | admin | Date | 2015-09-14 | Hits | 4079 |
KIPO and the USPTO Jointly Cooperate to Enhance Patent Quality In 2010, a Korean manufacturer of automobile bumpers filed patent applications for a multi-purpose bumper in both country A and country B. In 2011, the manufacturer successfully received a patent in country A, but their application to country B was rejected due to similar technology already existing there. The manufacturer was then surprised and dismayed to learn that, because of country B’s findings, they faced the possibility that their patent in country A would be rescinded. As part of an effort to curtail such confusion, KIPO and the USPTO have planned to launch their Collaborative Search Program (CSP) on September 1, 2015. The CSP, which was first proposed by KIPO in 2013, is available upon request to applicants who have filed identical patent applications in both Korea and the US. Its purpose is to expedite each office’s patent examination process through the sharing of prior art search results, which are a vital factor for determining the patentability of inventions. Sharing prior art search results prior to examination also leads to the increased reliability of patent rights, and accelerated examinations ensure that applicants can acquire their patents as quickly as possible.
Expectations for the CSP are high, as the US is the world’s largest patent market and Korean companies are frequently engaged in IP disputes there. * Number of international patent disputes involving Korean firms between 2007 and 2012: 709 in the US; 152 in Japan; 65 in Germany; 45 in Taiwan; 23 in Sweden; 18 in the UK; 15 in Canada (source: KIPO statistics)
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