The revised Korean Trade Mark Act (KTA) will come into effect from July 27 2010. The main contents of the revision are:
- Renewal registration procedures simplified. At present a trade mark owner pays renewal application fees on filing and then pays renewal registration fees after a decision to renew the registration has been made as a result of an examination. The reason the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) has used these procedures for renewal is to examine reclassifying Korea's own classifications into Nice classifications. Now, however, since it has been more than 10 years since the KIPO adopted the Nice classification, an examination for renewal has become superfluous. Therefore, as of July 27 2010, a registrant can pay the renewal registration fee upon filing, and thereby the renewal procedures will be completed. This is very cost effective when compared to the previous system.
- Instalment payment system for registration fees and renewal registration fees adopted. Under the revised Act, a registrant can pay the registration fees in two payments instead of a lump sum payment. The period and procedures for the second payment have not been decided yet. They will be prescribed soon through a revision of a subordinate ordinance of the KTA.
- Preferential examination system adopted. The KIPO has implemented a preferential examination for trade mark applications since April 2009 through a revision of a subordinate ordinance of the KTA, and the conditions for preferential examination will be changed to be based on the KTA as of July 27 2010. It normally takes from 10 months to a year from submission of an application to registration of the application. With the adoption of the preferential examination system, it has become possible to complete an examination within two months.
However, to request a preferential examination, a trade mark should be a mark that is being used or is the subject of a trade mark dispute in Korea. Additional fees should be paid as well as the application fees.
For reference, according to the KIPO database, about 84,000 trademark applications were filed from April 2009 to November 2009. Preferential examinations were made for about 0.6% of the applications (about 500 applications) and it took about 37 days on average for a result of the examination to be delivered to the applicant.
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| Michael Jung and KeeWan Koo |
MUHANN Patent & Law Firm
5th Floor, Myeonglim Bldg
51-8 Nonhyeon-Dong, Gangnam-Gu
Seoul, 135-814
Korea
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