Applicants will no longer have to pay the application fee (KRW 50,000 / USD 52) when applying for registration of a semiconductor layout design. They will also receive a discount for the registration fee, paying only KRW 100,000 (USD 104) instead of the previous KRW 300,000 (USD 312).


KIPO (Commissioner: JUN, Sang Woo) revised the ‘Law and regulations regarding the layout designs of integrated circuits’ to activate creation of semiconductor layout designs. Including a discount for registration fee, this revision has been in operation since November 10th, 2006.


In addition to the discount for the registration fee, the major contents of revision include the following changes:

· discounting the re-issuance fee for registration certificate from KRW 10,000 (USD 10) to KRW 6,500 (USD 7);

· discounting the transcript/abstract fee for layout design register from KRW 10,000 (USD 10) to KRW 500 (USD 0.52); and

· discounting the fees related to perusing/copying various applications and attachments from KRW 10,000 (USD 10) to KRW 500 (USD 0.52) each.


The revision has changed the format of a layout design registration certificate to be identical with the registration certificates for other intellectual properties, such as patents/utility model rights. Thanks to such changes, registration certificates issued by KIPO will have a unified format.


The number of layout designs registered at KIPO this year is 127 as of the end of October. Compared to last year, the number has been increased by more than 300%. With this increasing trend, discounts for the registration fee will encourage a cycle of creation of new layout designs that will eventually increase the number of registrations.


Director General LEE, Beom Ho of the Electric and Electronic Examination Bureau commented that this revision is a result of promoting management that can impress KIPO customers. He also said that KIPO will promote additional customer-oriented services, such as an electronic applications system where customers can apply for their layout designs on-line.