Patent Office: "Priority for COVID-19 Vaccines and Treatments... Support for Rapid Rights Acquisition"

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] The Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) will prioritize the examination of patent applications related to COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics from domestic companies. This is intended to help companies quickly secure rights to the relevant technologies and contribute to gaining leadership in vaccines.

KIPO announced on the 24th that, starting this month and for one year, patent applications in the field of COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics will be included in the priority examination category.

The designation of priority examination targets was made to secure vaccine sovereignty and health security in preparation for the resurgence of new variant viruses or the endemic phase of COVID-19.

Through this, KIPO expects that patent applications related to vaccines and therapeutics developed or produced by domestic companies will be able to obtain patents through a rapid examination process.

The priority examination targets include patent applications related to COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics supported by national research and development projects, as well as patent applications from companies producing COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics domestically or preparing for production through clinical trials and approvals.

Earlier, on June 23 of last year, KIPO amended the Patent Act, including a priority examination system to flexibly and swiftly respond to emergencies such as COVID-19, laying the groundwork for the COVID-19 vaccine field to be designated as a priority examination target.

When using priority examination, the average time to start patent application examination is reduced from 12.2 months to 2.3 months, shortening the process by about 10 months.

Lee In-sil, Commissioner of KIPO, said, “Although the spread of COVID-19 is decreasing, the development and production capacity of vaccines and therapeutics is directly linked to health security and remains an essential factor for localization. KIPO will actively support companies related to COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics to secure vaccine sovereignty and overcome national disasters.”