On 14 October 2008, the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) became the third foreign intellectual property office (after the EPO and JPO) to use the Priority Document Exchange (PDX) system for automatically exchanging priority documents with the USPTO. For cases filed before 14 October 2008, applicants will still have to file a request for retrieval of the priority documents. At present, the PDX system does not include designs or PCT international applications.

For more information see http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/dapp/opla/preognotice/kipopdx_10142008.pdf

As of 01 July 2008, new rules apply for requesting extensions of the two month time period for responding to office actions in Korea. Previously, applicants could file unlimited requests for monthly extensions of this period. Now, applicants can only get extensions of up to four months. The overall time period for responding to office actions is thus now restricted to six months from the time of receiving KIPO's first office action. If applicants request further extensions, they have to give justifiable reasons. The request for extension will not be accepted if the request for examination was filed by a third party. The new rules apply for all applications with office actions issued on or after 01 July 2008. For more details please see: http://www.nampat.co.kr/english/information/view01.asp?regdate=2008-06-12%2013:25:42&num=qzEOa1yrnnb3&page=&pageSize=&table=tb_board15.For additional information also see:  http://www.managingip.com/Article/2004289/Korea---KIPO-introduces-new-patent-rules.html

for Korean patents and utility models? In July 2008, the Korea Institute of Patent Information (KIPI) enhanced the search functions of the K2E-PAT machine translation service on the KIPRIS database. Users of K2E-PAT now have available 23 search fields, including a search with English keywords in original Korean data (cross-lingual patent retrieval function).

On top of machine-translated search results, K2E-PAT now also provides English titles of Korean patents and utility models, and English transliterations of applicants' names as filed by the applicants.

Although obtaining K2E-PAT machine translations of Korean full texts is a fee-based service, searching and displaying the results list (including the English titles and applicants' names filed by the applicants) is free-of-charge.

The K2E-PAT machine translation service is available at: http://k2epat.kipris.or.kr/k2epat/searchLogina.do?next=GeneralSearch

For more information on the K2E-PAT machine translation service see: http://www.epo.org/patents/patent-information/east-asian/translation/K2E-PAT.html

 survey on Korean Patent Abstracts (KPA)? KIPI hopes that users of Korean patent information will give feedback on the quality and usefulness of KPA English abstracts. The survey will run until 18 June 2008 on the KIPRIS (Korea Industrial Property Rights Information Service) website at http://eng.kipris.or.kr/

According to WIPO's Patent Report 2007, patent filings by residents doubled in Korea and increased eight-fold in China between 1995 and 2005. For more information see www.epo.org/focus/news/2007/20070810.html and www.wipo.int/ipstats/en/statistics/patents/patent_report_2007.html

of cases presented to the board of appeal, KIPT (Korean Intellectual Property Tribunal)? With additional administrative judges, the adoption of an “intensive” trial system and the limitation of time extensions for filing responses, KIPO hopes to shorten the decision period from approximately 14 months currently to six months by the end of 2007. For more information please look at: http://www.managingip.com/default.asp?page=10&pubID=34&SID=682668&ISS=23713&LS=EMS125252(Source; MIP News, "KIPO patent trials to be decided within six months") 

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