Annual Technical Report on Patent Information Activities in 2015 submitted by the Korean Intellectual Property Office

I. GENERAL OVERVIEW OF RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN PATENT INFORMATION ACTIVITIES CARRIED OUT BY THE OFFICE

Outline of main policies and plans aimed at development of patent information activities and expected time frames for their realization

Smart Examination System

The Smart Examination System was devised to accommodate KIPO examiners’ requests for higher examination efficiency with consideration of a possibility of making their examination results public information for the sake of competitive examination period and quality examination at the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO).  More specifically, it is featured with two functionalities: 1) automatic analysis of applications, which highlights errors in each application including clerical mistakes, and 2) error prevention for notifications, which finds errors in notifications such as ‘notification of reasons for refusal’ and ‘decision of refusal.’

Next Generation Search System

With the increasing demand for more accurate search results in the limited time available, KIPO also recognized the necessity of making its search system more optimized in reducing examination pendency and improving examination quality. To realize this, KIPO designed the Next Generation Search System and implemented the following: 1) introduction of up-to-date UI to provide a more customized search environment, 2) employment of a new search engine and linkage of some functionalities to one another, 3) expansion of high quality information, and 4) introduction of hybrid search function.

New projects launched or resumed this year in the context of the policies and plans mentioned above, short description: aims, partners, tasks

Smart Examination System (April to December 2015)

This project aims to improve examination efficiency and examination quality. Tasks involve developing some functions to 1) prevent errors in preparing notifications, 2) automatically analyze applications, and 3) compare divisional application and related applications.

Next Generation Search System (May to December 2015)

This aims to build a next-generation search system for patents and utility models which can bring exact search results so as to improve the quality of examination. Related tasks are 1) to improve the search performance by employing next generation search engine, 2) to provide extended search results by linking search functionalities, 3) to increase the search quality through high quality information, and 4) to eventually implement optimized and customized search environment for KIPO examiners.

Main areas of patent information activities and related information and communication technology (ICT) practices which were in the focus of attention last year

...

Statistics: changes in terms of application filings and grants with respect to previous year; trends or areas experiencing rapid changes

The changes in filings/grants for patents/utility models in 2015, compared to 2014, are as follow:

• Patents: filings (213,694, a 1.6% increase)/grants (101,873, a 21.5% decrease)

• Utility models: filings (8,711, a 5.2% decrease)/grants (3,253, a 34.3% decrease)

Other matters and useful links (URLs): annual report of the Office, news page, statistics, etc.

• Annual Report: http://www.kipo.go.kr/kpo/user.tdf?a=user.english.html.HtmlApp&c=60114&catmenu=ek07_01_01_15

• Statistics: http://www.kipo.go.kr/kpo/user.tdf?a=user.english.html.HtmlApp&c=97000&catmenu=ek07_03_01

II. SERVICES AND ACTIVITIES RELATED TO PATENT INFORMATION CARRIED OUT BY THE OFFICE

Information and support provided by the Office to applicants regarding filing on paper and/or e-filing (instructions, seminars, etc.) - URLs

To integrate scattered counseling resources and promptly provide technical advice, the Customer Service Center was established in March 2002. Its main services are on the following issues:

• Procedural and technical advice on (electronic) filing, examination, grant, trial, search and use of patent information, as well as international patent applications;

• Informing of the progress after consultation with additional guidance;  

• Use of the Expert System (e-filing support system) and remote consultation;

• Consultations through mobile web/app or Twitter;

• Angel Call service, informing applicants in advance that their applications will be closed, along with suggesting reasonable solutions; and

• Consultations to socially vulnerable classes through text message and/or one-on-one chatting

e-Filing Portal (http://www.patent.go.kr)

At this web page, applicants can file their applications online and pay relevant fees via Internet banking. They can also request and receive certificates such as priority certificates via the Internet and check the progress of their request, as well as be informed of the administrative progress of their applications via e-mail and/or SMS. This is also linked to the WEB-PASS, which is a web-based e-filing system used for receiving intermediate documents and grant/trial-related documents, as well as all types of IPR applications.

Availability of the application dossier in electronic form

All patent and utility model applications filed at KIPO are made available in electronic format for its administrative processing including examination, publication, and trial.  In 2015, 98.3 percent of the total patent applications and 90.1 percent of the total utility model applications were filed online via the e-filing portal mentioned above. The rest of such applications which were filed in paper are also digitalized in electronic format, along with all the other application-related documents including amendments and intermediate documents. This digitalization process employs multi-OCR, dual key input, automatic verification and color scanning. In 2015, 3510 patent applications and 859 utility model applications were digitalized.

Classification¹, preclassification² (if applicable), reclassification³ activities; classification systems used (e.g., International Patent Classification (IPC)); matters concerning indexing of patent information

International Patent Classification
KIPO’s official classification system for patents and utility models is the International Patent Classification (IPC). Pre-classification is outsourced to a professional agency and each examiner decides which subgroup an application should be classified under.
KIPO’s activities for 2015 were as follows:

- A total of 214,030 applications for patents and utility models filed at KIPO in 2015 were classified according to the IPC (2014 version) and CPC.
- 20,263 PCT applications were also classified based on the IPC.
- 231,902 old documents were reclassified according to CPC.
- 127,233 documents, which are listed in the Working List made by WIPO pertaining to the versions of 2007.01 to 2014.01, were reclassified in accordance with the revised IPC version 2014.01.

Abstracting, reviewing, and translation of the information contained in patent documents

For the purposes of international information sharing and overseas protection of Korean industrial property rights, the Korean Patent Abstract (KPA), an English abstract for patent applications published in 1999 onward and patent grants published in 1979 onward, has been provided on CD-ROMs or via FTP to 48 national IPOs and seven organizations including WIPO and the EPO. As of the end of 2015, the number of patent applications which have been published in KPA amounts to 2.27 million.

Other activities

III. SOURCES OF PATENT INFORMATION PROVIDED BY THE OFFICE

...

Main types of publications of the Office (patent applications, full text, first pages, abstracts, bibliographic data, granted patents, etc.), medium (on paper, on CDs, online - URLs)

Applications and grants of patent and utility model are published via PDF gazettes available at KIPO’s website on a daily basis, while English patent abstracts (i.e., KPAs) are published on CD-ROM, as explained below.

Official Gazettes: main types of announcements, frequency of publication, medium (on paper, on CDs, online - URL), etc.

PDF gazettes of Korean patents and utility models can be seen for three months on KIPO’s website (http://www.kipo.go.kr/kpo/user.tdf?a=user.html.HtmlApp&c=4135&catmenu=m03_03_02) for three months after being first posted on the website, since July 2001 for quick and easy access by the public. The gazettes are also offered to people who have subscribed to the mailing service. Furthermore, DVD-ROM gazettes are produced in XML format (up until February 2005 this data was produced in SGML format), to be distributed to three domestic organizations, twice a month. The gazettes on patents and utility models published in 2015 contained the following:

• 146,113 patent applications and 102,128 patent grants
• 4666 utility model applications and 3285 utility model grants

Information products and patent document collections (coverage, medium, etc.) available to examiners, including external collections and databases

Patent and Utility Model data available to KIPO examiners is made accessible through its search system and includes the following:
 
• Domestic data: patent and utility model applications (1983-); granted patents and utility models (1948-) and KPAs (1973-),
• Overseas data: applications and grants of patents and utility models from JPO (1971-); Espace-A (1978-); Espace-B (1980-); Espace-world (1978-); WIPO Impact Rule 87 (2002-); granted patents from USA (1974-); bibliographic data and abstracts of patents from Taiwan (2000-); patent applications from Great Britain (1979-); patent applications, granted patents and English abstracts from China (1985-); patent applications and granted patents from Canada (1981-); patent applications and granted patents from Australia (1980-),  gazettes of patents from France (1992-), and bibliographic data and abstracts from Russia (1992-)
• Non-patent literature: theses and journals (via the National Digital Science Library); standard technology documents (i.e., 3GPP, IETF, ETSI, ITU, TTA, JCTVC, JEDEC, MPEG) and technologies announced on the internet (2000- ), and Korean traditional knowledge (in theses, on medical stuff, disease symptom, prescription, architecture literature, and Wikipedia)
• Links to other offices’ search services: Espacenet & European Patent Register (EPO); AIPN & IPDL (JPO); CNIPR (SIPO) and Patent Full-Text Database (USPTO).

Information products and patent document collections (coverage, medium, etc.) available to external users, conditions of access (e.g., free of charge, subscription, etc.)

...