KIPO Provides 'Priority Examination' Package Support for Secondary Battery Patents

The Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) will expand its examination and trial package support system to secure a super-gap in the secondary battery industry sector.

KIPO recently announced the ‘2024 KIPO Major Policy Implementation Plan’ containing this initiative. The plan is structured around strengthening internal capabilities, growth potential, and export competitiveness in three major areas: examination and trial, domestic intellectual property ecosystem, and global environment. It sets five major strategies and ten core tasks to be pursued.

According to the plan, this year KIPO will hire 38 retired private-sector experts as patent examiners in the secondary battery technology field, following the semiconductor sector. It will also include patent applications in the secondary battery field as subjects for prioritized examination. The recruitment of patent examiners is scheduled to begin with a public announcement at the end of this month.

In particular, starting from the 26th of this month, KIPO plans to designate and operate a dedicated trial division for secondary batteries to enable package support for examination and trials.

It also emphasizes creating a virtuous cycle ecosystem encompassing all areas of intellectual property protection, creation, and utilization to maximize the growth potential of domestic companies.

To strengthen intellectual property protection, KIPO will dispatch intellectual property specialists to the Counterintelligence Information Sharing Center to facilitate close cooperation among counterintelligence agencies, aiming to prevent the overseas leakage of national advanced technologies.

Additionally, in line with the enactment and implementation of the ‘Industrial Property Information Act,’ KIPO will establish a foundation to timely provide intellectual property big data such as databases (DB) of advanced technology-holding companies to national institutions for use in economic security.

Cooperation with the Prosecutor’s Office and Customs Service to link criminal justice information systems and share information on counterfeit goods clearance is also a key policy task for KIPO this year.

KIPO will enhance the effectiveness of intellectual property infringement investigations by introducing corrective orders for unfair competition administrative investigations and establishing regulations to impose fines up to 20 million KRW for non-compliance with such orders.

To promote intellectual property creation, KIPO will establish the ‘National Strategic Technology Patent Support Group’ within the Patent Strategy Development Institute to comprehensively support the mandatory patent investigation and analysis of national R&D projects under the ‘National Strategic Technology Promotion Act’ and the ‘Industrial Property Information Act.’

Furthermore, by analyzing global patent big data in 12 national strategic technology fields, KIPO’s strategy is to identify promising technologies by understanding trends of major competing countries and companies, thereby maximizing R&D outcomes and efficiency.

Subsequently, KIPO plans to complete the development of a value evaluation model within the year so that excellent intellectual property created can be applied to various fields through transactions and transfers, expanding industrial utilization.

This year, KIPO will also build an intellectual property support system for companies expanding overseas to enhance export competitiveness. The current IP-DESK, which supports individual countries, will be reorganized into a ‘wide-area overseas IP center,’ expanding supported countries from 11 to 40. Cooperation with overseas local intellectual property enforcement agencies will also be extended to all ASEAN countries to eliminate blind spots in intellectual property protection.

In particular, KIPO emphasizes supporting the pioneering of strategic markets through continuous expansion of the Korean-style intellectual property system export centered on the Middle East and ASEAN, diversifying cooperation areas, and spreading administrative Hallyu.

Kim Si-hyung, Acting Commissioner of KIPO, stated, “At this time when global technological hegemony competition is intensifying, intellectual property will serve as a strong shield for our advanced technologies and companies.” He added, “As the main government agency for intellectual property, KIPO will actively support Korea’s leap to a global leading country through intellectual property.”