"An intellectual property world where Intellectual Property Organizations (IPOs) support a common search and examination environment so each has the ability to produce and reproduce equivalent search results for each application that is examined."

Korea is recognized globally as an innovation leader with its membership in the "IP5", the forum representing the top five intellectual property offices in the world. In addition to Korea, the IP5 includes the United States, China, the European Union, and Japan, and thanks to the new agreement, Korea will now join the other IP5 countries in offering the resources of IP.com's Prior Art Database in order to ensure the quality and strength of patents.

IP.com announced a formal agreement with the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) for the use of IP.com's Prior Art Database (PAD). The agreement was overseen by KIPO's representative Director Mr. General D.H. Jae and IP.com's exclusive Korea partner Global Techlink Inc. (GTL), an intellectual property consultancy, and signed by GTL CEO Mr. Johney Kim on October 18, 2010, at Seoul's Daejeon Government Complex.

"We are incredibly honored to be partnering with the Korean Intellectual Property Office to offer them complete access to the Prior Art Database," said Thomas J. Colson, CEO, IP.com. "Since only one existing prior art can invalidate a patent, the PAD is essential to a thorough vetting of any patent application. Companies and individuals who now apply for sole control of their intellectual property in Korea can now be confident that they have been subject to a rigorous and comprehensive patent approval process by the KIPO."

GTL CEO Kim added, "Local patent quality will be improved by the launch of IP.com's PAD service. Patent analytic firms, companies, universities, and organizations will no longer be dependent on ineffective research methods, and will have better knowledge of international trends and histories in research and development."

IP.com has the most extensive prior art database in the world, with IBM, Microsoft, Intel, HP, Sony, and other global companies publishing their prior art through IP.com. In addition to the IP5, the intellectual property offices of 34 countries around the world now rely on IP.com's PAD, and that number continues to grow.

The U.S. Commercial Service, the trade promotion arm of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration, along with the Korean Association for Intellectual Property Service (KAIPS) honored IP.com and its Korean partner Global TechLink Inc. (GTL), in an official event at the Grand InterContinental Hotel in Seoul, Korea, on December 9, 2010.

The “Defensive Publication Strategy Seminar” marked the official introduction of IP.com’s Prior Art Database to Korea under formal agreement with the Korean Intellectual Property Office. Among the presenters were Man Gi Paik, Chairman, KAIPS; Mark O’Grady, Commercial Attache, U.S. Embassy Korea; Thomas J. Colson, CEO, IP.com; and Johney Kim, CEO, Global TechLink. In attendance were a number of representatives of the international business community, as well as Korean and U.S. government officials.

“It was a great honor for us to have both the American and Korean governments to join forces in recognition of this new relationship,” said Colson. ”As a member of the IP5 countries, Korea is among the leaders in intellectual property development and patent applications, and we are proud that IP.com’s database will play an integral role in assuring a seamless approval process for corporations, organizations, and individuals.”

KAIPS Chairman Paik is a qualified patent attorney with Kim & Chang who also acts as a high-tech policy consultant to the Korean Government. He is also a member of the Intellectual Property Policy Committee of KIPO, and the vice chairman of the Intellectual Property Protection Association (AIPPI) in Korea.

The Five IP Offices (IP5) is the name given to a forum of the five largest intellectual property offices in the world that is being set up to improve the efficiency of the examination process for patents worldwide. The members of IP5 are:

• European Patent Office (EPO),
• Japan Patent Office (JPO),
• Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO),
• State Intellectual Property Office of the People's Republic of China (SIPO),
• United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

The vision of the IP5 Offices is global co-operation, which has been defined as "the elimination of unnecessary duplication of work among the IP5 Offices, the enhancement of patent examination efficiency and quality and guarantee of the stability of patent right". The objective is to address the ever-increasing backlog at the world's five biggest intellectual property offices. As the world sees economic barriers between nations fade away, innovators want their intellectual creations protected concurrently in multiple major markets. Hence, applications for the same technology are filed at more than one patent office. The solution to the backlog problem is to reduce, to the maximum extent possible, the duplication of work which takes place at each office for a family of patent applications.

The IP5 Offices account for 90% of all patent applications filed worldwide and for 93% of all work carried out under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT).

PATINEX offers insight into various facade of IP information and latest cutting edge developments of new tools and services for protecting, enforcing and exploiting a company's IP.

Conference host, Jung-Sik Koh, Commissioner, Korean Intellectual Property Office has welcomed us back again this year, and we're having very productive meetings here and enjoying the conference program.

This year, we're featuring IP.com's InnovationQ enterprise solution for organizations with significant portfolios of intellectual property to manage throughout the IP life-cycle.

Also of great interest at this conference is the Prior Art Database, the world's leading repository and registry of prior art.

The IP.com Prior Art Database is a unique database dedicated to the publication of technical disclosure documents. The IP.com Prior Art Database contains content that cannot be found anywhere else, and is an essential source of non-patent prior art data for intellectual property professionals, research and development (R&D) staff, corporate library staff, and individual inventors wishing to research prior art. The IP.com Prior Art Database is home to a wide array of technical disclosures from many Fortune 500 companies. While many publish anonymously to prevent competitive intelligence, you will also find many disclosures published with full authorship information from innovative companies such as IBM, Motorola, and Siemens. The IP.com Prior Art Database is also the exclusive location for new IBM-TDB (Technical Disclosure Bulletin) documents on the Web.

Recently, the Korean Intellectual Propery Office (KIPO) showed its leadership in fast-tracking green patent applications. 

On 1 October 2009, the Korean Patent Office (KIPO) launched its "super speed examination system" for green technology. The system is available for green technologies that minimise the discharge of pollutants, as well as those which have received funding or authentication for green growth. Applicants can apply for super speed examination by requesting a prior art search from one of three agencies authorised to conduct such searches on behalf of KIPO (the Korea Institute of Patent Information (KIPI), WIPS Co. Ltd. or IP Solution Co. Ltd.) and submitting the results of the search to KIPO.

Details of the application procedure for super speed examination and the documents required, etc. are posted on KIPO's website in the News section (article no. 688, published on 2 October 2009): http://www.kipo.go.kr

As Executive Vice President of IP.com and head of the company's Asia Pacific operations, I look forward to working with KIPO and other leading governmental agencies and business organizations to increase efficiencies in management of patent systems. Look for IP.com in the exhibition hall at PATINEX 2009, or contact me personally by email jkong@ip.com at your convenience, and see how we can help.