Korean Patent Act Development of 2022

Major revisions to the South Korean Patent Act (KPA) came into effect on April 20, 2022. The period for filing an appeal against a rejection decision in Korea will be extended from 30 days to three months. Under the amended Korean Patent Act (KPA), applicants can save costs by avoiding time extensions that earlier had a narrow time period of 30 days. The time period was extended to three months from the date of receipt of a Notice of Final

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Korean Trademark Act Amendments for 2022

Recent Amendments to the Korean Trademark Act were passed by the the National Assembly of Korea. On February 3, 2022, the National Assembly published the Korean Trademark Act revisions. One major revision was the expansion of the meaning of “use of a trademark.” The revision should make the application process easier for applicants and expand the rights of those granted a trademark. IPG Legal welcomes these changes. Another article that may be of interest to the reader includes: Korean Intellectual

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Protecting your Intellectual Property Rights in Korea: Avoid “Trying Different Things & Smoking Funny Things”

A popular song regularly played on the radio proclaims that in the summer of 1989 the songwriter, Kid Rock, was “trying different things and smoking funny things.”  If you have any exposure to the Korean market, do your business a favor and don’t be like the songwriter.  All business with any exposure to the Korean market must have a plan in place to protect their intellectual property.  Thus, for the sake of your company, at a bare minimum, you should

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Protecting Trade Secrets in Korea: Top 5 Things to Know Before Subjecting your Business Secrets to the Korean Market

We receive emails, regularly, requesting advice on the protection of IP rights in Korea and China.   Most of the issues I addressed in this blog come from these questions.  I realized, after writing over 1000 posts on this blog, that I never drafted a post on trade secrets.  Don’t blame me, blame my paralegal. 🙂 Definition of a Trade Secret in KoreaAs you probably know, a trade secret is, simply any design, process, formula or the like that is

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International Arbitrations in Korea under the IBA Rules

Procedural Arbitration rules are key to the efficient and effective adjudication of arbitration disputes in Korea and, also, worldwide.  These arbitration rules govern and set out the framework for the arbitration process. Evidence gathering and presentation are important aspects of the above procedure, and yet, institutional and ad hoc rules that provide arbitration guidelines on other matters such as the appointment of arbitrators and the nature of award and costs are, usually, silent on this point. Advantages of such a

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Korea has 4th Highest Number of International Patent Applications in the World

The Korean Intellectual Property Office made an announcement that South Korea has surpassed Germany and became the number four country in the world in international patent application to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The first spot is taken by China, followed by U.S. and Japan for the second place and third place respectively. Last year, also, saw another record-breaking milestone as South Korea exceeded the 20,000 mark for the first time and submitted 20,060 international patent applications for 2020.

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