The Korean Intellectual Property Office(KIPO) and the Korea Federation of Banks(KFB) will co-host a “presentation of financial BM patents” for bank managers on September 8th (Thursday), in an effort to enhance financial institutions’ patent ability.

Financial BM (Business Method) patents were all across the board thanks to the venture boom (that took off in 2000) and the emerging of wireless telecommunication technology like the Internet.

Patent filings have sharply increased since 2002, but local banks had little patent-related operational experience or information. This explains their difficulty in wining a patent right or fight. Fortunately, they’ve recently been more interested in securing their intellectual property rights as a new breakthrough in creating profits.

According to KIPO, the number of financial BM patent applications hit its peak at 742 in 2000 but fell to 292 in 2004, down 16.3 percent from the previous year. However the number of technology-based patent filings in the financial sector increased to 98, up 15 percent from last year, substantially making up for the loss.

In 2004 BM patent examinations found the financial BM patentability at 22.8 percent, growing faster then any other. This comes from the fact that applicants’ are more interested in patents, and the patent office’s greater assistance raised awareness of patents nationwide.

However, financial and other kinds of BM patentabilities have yet to reach patentability (60.1 percent in 2004) in all technological fields.

The presentation was designed for two reasons. One is to encourage applicants to correctly word a statement concerning the entry of an application with given information on BM patent policy and its modified examining standards. The other is to make financial institutions better at handling patent issues by providing data on the state of financial BM patent applications or registrations at home and abroad, case studies of financial BM patent fights and measures against them.


Source: KIPO News Script dated September 5, 2005