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Patents, Trademarks and Copyrights in Korea
Many scholars would define an intellectual property right as the exclusive ownership of an original product of the thought processes. The major categories of intellectual property are patents, trademarks and copyrights.
In order to register a patent in Korea, first of all, the application must be submitted to Korea Intellectual Property Office (KIPO). The following documents and papers are required for filing a patent: 1) The name and address of the inventor, the applicant and a representative (if the applicant is a juristic person); 2) Specifications which include the title of the invention, a brief description of drawings and a detailed description of the invention; and 3) Drawings, abstracts and claims. The documents can be submitted to KIPO either through on-line, by a floppy disk or in hard copy. Then, 18 months later, all submitted applications are automatically published in the official gazette, called "Patent Laid-Open Gazette". Sometimes, applicants may request to publish thier application earlier, 1 year and 6 months before the filing date. The print parts of the official gazette, and as well as the other information about intellectual property in Korea, can be found on the website of Korea Patent Attorney Association. The good thing is they offer a free search system. Unfortunately, the information is available only in Korean, though. Still the English abstracts of Korean patents can be extracted from their database. After the submission, the applicant should request for the examination of the application within 5 years from the date of the submission. Once the application is validated, an application number is assigned to it and then it studied by authorized commission. Later, the applicant is notified if his or her application was rejected or approved. All approved applications are registered where, at the end, applicants pay the required registration fee to the Korean Industrial Property Office within 3 months from the date of notification receipt.
The registration of trademarks in Korea goes through a similar process as for patents, since both are submitted to the same organization. The following documents are required for the registration: 1) Name and address of the applicant; 2) the applicant's signature is sufficient for such document; and 3) the notarization is not required. Another requirement is the Power of Attorney, which must have an applicant’s signature on it. Beside those documents, specimens of the trademark are submitted in 10 copies of the size of the trademark, no larger than 7cm x 7cm. In addition, the applicant must prepare a detailed list of goods that will be covered under the mark. In the case if the total number of goods exceeds 10 items, an additional official surcharge is required to be paid for each additional item. Finally, the claims and priority documents must be presented. The priority can be claimed within six months of the first filing date while the priority documents can be filed within three months of the filing date.
Same as for both previous intellectual properties, the registration of copyrights is also conducted in three main steps - application, examination and registration. The difference is that in contrast to patents and trademarks, the copyrights are registered at the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. First of all, the application is handled by the organization called the Commission for Deliberation and Conciliation, where the information in the application is verified. Then, the application is examined by the commission and the applicant is notified as to either his claims for copyrights are legal or illegal. The approved legal applications then continue the sign-on procedure, where the application is granted a registration number and gets prepared for the listing in the register. Subsequently, the information about the copyrights is entered into the computer database for the further certification. During this process, the applicant is issued about the status of his application. At the end of this procedure, the application form and all attached documents to it are properly filed and stored. Finally, applicant receives his awaited registration certificate and the copyrights are published in an official report. Since it is not free, the applicant is charged for the registration tax.
Patents are issued to protect novels and useful inventions in accordance with the Patent Act. They are granted once by Korea Intellectual Property Office for a term of 20 years. Trademarks are a design, slogan, or brand name, used to identify products or services as coming from a particular source and are protected, as provided in the Trademark Act. Same as patents, trademarks also can be registered at the Korea Intellectual Property Office, with the difference that they can be renewed every 10 years. Copyrights protect original creations of authorship, such as books, music, original paintings, sound recordings, motion pictures, sculptures, and computer programs. Unlike patents and trademarks, copyrights are registered at the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, for a non-renewable term, consisting of the life of the author plus 50 years. Interestingly, the employer can obtain a copyright of the work of for employees either for a term of 75 years from publication or 100 years from the creation, in accordance what came first.
By Alisher Muhammadiev
(April 26th, 2006)
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