JAPAN PATENT OFFICE
The JPO has been aiming to achieve the “world's fastest and utmost quality patent examinations”. To this end, the JPO has been implementing various measures focused on “maintaining speed”, “granting high quality rights”, and “cooperating and collaborating with foreign IP offices”.
With the acceleration of the intellectual property creation cycle, there is a growing need to shorten total pendency, and the JPO has been engaging in initiatives to speed up examinations.
●Accelerated Examination System
Under certain conditions, the JPO offers an accelerated examination system/super-accelerated examination system that, upon the request of an applicant, expedites the commencement of an examination. An accelerated examination system may be applied for applications that are also filed in one or more other countries and applications by small and medium-sized enterprises, etc. The JPO is running pilot programs for a super-accelerated examination system for highly important applications, such as applications for inventions that have already been put into practice and that are also filed in one or more other countries. In principle, this system aims for the period from request to first action to be within one month (within two months for PCT National Entry Phase applications) .
●Quality Management Initiatives
Under the “Quality Policy on Patent Examination”, which constitutes the JPO's fundamental principles of quality management, and the “Quality Management Manual for Patent Examination” (Quality Management Manual), the JPO has been engaging in the following initiatives in order to realize the utmost quality of patent examinations in the world.
1）Quality Assurance
Before sending applicants and agents documents by examiners regarding notices and decisions, etc., managers in the examination office check substantive and formal aspects of such documents for all cases. Examiners consult with other examiners in order to share search know-how and knowledge, etc., in order to curb search and decision discrepancies among examiners.
2）Quality Verification
Decisions and notices, etc. prepared by examiners are audited by quality management officers to check compliance and validity in terms of content and format before sending official documents to applicants and agents. In order to ascertain various user needs, the JPO conducts interviews at informal meetings with businesses, accepts information provided in relation to individual cases, and expands the scope of user satisfaction surveys covering overseas users and small-scale users.
KOREAN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OFFICE
As the Korean governmental agency primarily responsible for overseeing intellectual property rights (IPRs), the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) strives to conduct its intellectual property (IP) administration in accordance with the national paradigm of creative economy, which seeks to foster innovation and new engines of economic growth to drive Korea's future prosperity.
KIPO has put as great an emphasis as possible on further developing its examination services, as well as promoting economic sustainability through a virtuous cycle of IP creation, utilization, and protection. KIPO strengthened our cooperative ties with foreign IP offices and other international organizations.
KIPO aims to provide fast, high-quality, and customer-oriented examination services by continuing to improve examination systems, raise the quality of IP administration, and reduce first action pendency. The average first office pendency in 2019 was 10.8 months for patents and utility models, 6.8 months for trademarks, and 5.4 months for industrial designs.
In 2019, KIPO received a preliminary total of 510,968 applications filing for patents, utility models, industrial designs, and trademarks in 2019. Out of that number, 84,216 applications were filed by residents of foreign countries.
The number of PCT applications from Korea has continually grown every year. We have the 5th largest amount of PCT applications by country of origin. There were 18,885 PCT applications in total for 2019 which is an 11.1 percent increased from 16,991 applications in 2018.
The Korean language is also the 5th most commonly used language as an official PCT publication language.
Since the first establishment of a legal system for intellectual property (IP) in the Republic of Korea in 1946, the quantity and range of IP applications have exponentially increased. KIPO registered the first patent registration in 1948 and reached the registration of one million patents after sixty-two years in 2010. In just a few years afterwards, KIPO issued the registration of its second millionth patent by 2019, becoming the 7th country in the world to achieve this milestone.
For the first time, the total volume of intellectual property right (IPR) filings for a one-year period recorded 510,968 cases in 2019, which is an 6.4% increase from previous year. Additionally, the Korean patent market for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has been rapidly growing as the volume of patent application by SMEs have surpassed that of large enterprises since 2015.
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
The mission of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is:
Fostering innovation, competitiveness and economic growth, domestically and abroad by delivering high quality and timely examination of patent and trademark applications, guiding domestic and international intellectual property policy, and delivering intellectual property information and education worldwide, with a highly skilled, diverse workforce.
In FY 2019, the USPTO exceeded patent pendency goals with an average first action pendency of 14.7 months and 23.8 months for total pendency. The total application filings nearly doubled in that time, from 353,000 in FY 2002 to 667,000 in FY 2019.
FY 2019 marks the 14th consecutive year that the USPTO Trademark examining attorneys surpassed pendency and quality targets. Additionally, in FY 2019, Trademarks took several important actions toward enhancing the accuracy of the U.S. Trademark Register and reducing fraudulent filings. Such actions include the expansion of random post-registration audits, implementation of a new U.S. Counsel Rule, and educating applicants and the public on counterfeiting.
The USPTO's Pro Se Art Unit provides dedicated educational and practical resources to small businesses, independent inventors, and under-resourced inventors. In FY 2019, around 1,200 patents were granted in applications handled by examiners in the Pro Se Art Unit. Through education and enhanced customer service, the Pro Se Art Unit helped increase accessibility to patent protection with almost 37 percent of all pro se applications examined by the Pro Se Art Unit resulting in a patent grant. In addition, examiners in the Pro Se Art Unit worked with unrepresented applicants in thousands of applications to help make the patent system more transparent and understandable.
In 2019 the USPTO published a Report to Congress pursuant to The Study of Underrepresented Classes Chasing Engineering and Science Success (SUCCESS) Act. This report contained a literature review and found a need for additional information to determine the participation rates of women, minorities, and veterans.The report concluded with some new USPTO initiatives and legislative recommendations for increasing the participation of women, minorities, and veterans as inventor-patentees and entrepreneurs.
(edited by Shao Jingjing, edited and proofread by Cui Jingsi, reviewed by sun yaman)
[warm tips] the source material is from the State Intellectual Property Office, and the copyright belongs to the original author. If there is something wrong, please contact to inform us of modification or deletion. Thank you.
One on one service for appointment experts
