CWS.ATR.ID.2013.KR

Annual Technical Report 2013 on Industrial Design Information Activities submitted by Republic of Korea (CWS/ATR/ID/2013/KR)

Where URLs are requested below, it is preferred that either URLs which are likely to remain stable over time (three years or more) are provided, or home (main) page URLs are provided with a short explanation of how to access the corresponding information.

The expression "industrial designs" covers industrial designs and models. Offices which issue design patents should report their design patent information activities in this series of Annual Technical Reports.

I. GENERAL OVERVIEW OF RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN INDUSTRIAL DESIGN INFORMATION ACTIVITIES CARRIED OUT BY THE OFFICE

Outline of main policies and plans aimed at development of industrial design information activities and expected time frames for their realization

Establishment of Global Design System
The Global Design System was designed to keep up with international norms for design systems. It aims to rebuild KIPO’s existing design system to reflect all domestic design law changes caused by KIPO’s joining of the Hague Agreement as well as establish functions for international applications under the Agreement. This project will be conducted in two phases from 2013 to 2014.

New projects launched or resumed this year in the context of the policies(plans) mentioned above, short description: aims, partners, tasks

1st phase development for the Global Design System
This project aims to advance the design system from October 2013 to July 2014 in preparation for the enforcement of revised laws to come into force in July 2014, which were caused by KIPO’s joining of the Hague Agreement. Tasks are 1) to rebuild the existing design system on the whole business procedures such as filing, formality and substantive examinations, registration, and trial and 2) to newly develop a global design function for international applications and for linkage to WIPO systems.

Main areas of industrial design information activities and related information and communication technology (ICT) practices which were in the focus of attention last year

E-government framework, UTF-8 character set and JAVA have been used.

Statistics: changes in terms of application filings and grants (registrations) with respect to previous year; trends or areas experiencing rapid changes

In 2013, compared with 2012 (when measured on a multiple class basis), the number of design applications filed at KIPO was 70,054, representing a 7% increase; while the number of registered trademarks was 49,039, representing a 2.9% increase.

II. SERVICES AND ACTIVITIES RELATED TO INDUSTRIAL DESIGN INFORMATION CARRIED OUT BY THE OFFICE

Information and support provided by the Office to applicants regarding filing on paper and/or e-filing (instructions, seminars, etc.) – URLs

To integrate scattered counseling resources and promptly provide technical advice, the Customer Service Center was established in March 2002. Its main services are on the following issues:

- Procedural and technical advice on (electronic) filing, examination, grant, trial, search and use of design information, as well as on international design applications
- Informing the progress after consultation with additional guidance
- Use of the Expert System (e-filing support system) and remote consultation
- Consultation through mobile web/app or Twitter
- Angel Call service, informing applicants in advance that their applications would be closed along with suggesting reasonable solutions

e-Filing Portal (http://www.patent.go.kr)
At this web page, applicants can file their applications online and pay relevant fees via Internet banking. They can also request and receive a variety of certificates via the Internet and check the progress of their request, as well as be informed of the administrative progress of their applications via e-mail and/or SMS. This is also linked to the WEB-PASS, which is a web-based, e-filing system used for receiving intermediate documents and grant/trial-related documents, as well as all types of IPR applications.

Availability of the application dossier in electronic form

Approximately 95.8 percent of the total design applications (i.e., 64,135 applications) filed to KIPO in 2013 have made available in electronic form from being filed by applicants via electronic media such as disc, CD, USB, or online via the e-filing portal mentioned above. The rest of such applications which were filed in paper are also digitalized in electronic format, along with all the other application-related documents including amendments and intermediate documents. This digitalization process employs multi-OCR, dual key input, automatic verification and color scanning. In 2013, 2807 design applications were digitalized.

Classification and reclassification activities; classification system used, e.g., International Classification for Industrial Designs (Locarno Classification), other classification

KIPO uses its own classification system for designs, which is comprised of 13 categories and 75 main classes. Although KIPO has yet to adopt the Locarno Classification for examination activities, it cross-references the 9th edition of the Locarno Classification on official gazettes.

III. SOURCES OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN INFORMATION PROVIDED BY THE OFFICE

Main types of publications in the field of industrial design information, outline of the content (industrial design applications, design patents, registrations, etc.) and medium (on paper, on CDs, online – URLs)

Design applications and registrations are published on KIPO’s website via PDF on a daily basis as official gazettes, as explained in the next section.

Official Gazettes: main types of announcements, frequency of publication, medium (on paper, on CDs, online - URL), etc.

PDF gazettes of design applications and registrations can be seen for three months on KIPO’s website (http://www.kipo.go.kr/kpo/user.tdf?a=user.html.HtmlApp&c=4017&catmenu=m04_03_04) for three months after being first posted on the website, since July 2001 for quick and easy access by the public. The gazettes are also offered by email to people who have subscribed to the mailing service. Furthermore, DVD-ROM gazettes are produced in XML/PDF format, to be distributed to 11 domestic and 19 foreign offices, twice a month. The gazettes on design published in 2013 contained 49,485 design applications and registrations.

Information products (coverage, medium, etc.) available to examiners, including external documentation and databases

Design data available to KIPO examiners is provided through its search system and is as follows:

- Domestic data: applications (1960- ), registrations (1966- ), utility model designs (1970- ),
- Overseas data (publications): US (1997- ), Germany (1988- ), WIPO (1999- ), OHIM (2003- ),
Japan (1965- ), China (2010- )
- Combination of domestic and overseas data: computer generated graphic designs (2003- ), typeface (1999- ), catalogues (1999- ), two-dimensional designs (2013- )

Information products (coverage, medium, etc.) and services available to external users; conditions of access (e.g., free of charge, subscription, etc.)

Korea Industrial Property Rights Information Service (KIPRIS)
Since January 2001, domestic design information has been made available free-of-charge through KIPRIS at http://www.kipris.or.kr: bibliographic data (in text format from 1948), images (in JPEG format from 1948) and gazette data (in TIFF format from 1964 to 1997 and in PDF/XML from 1998 onwards). KIPRIS also provides design information from JPO, USPTO and WIPO.

Legal status information (kind of information, coverage, medium, etc.)

Legal status information is made available at KIRPISPlus (http://plus.kipris.or.kr), a fee-based search service via an Open API targeting web service users launched in September 2012. Such information can be identified with 68 kinds of legal status codes and 171 types of event codes, which are updated every two weeks. Legal status codes represent the administrative progress of an application while the event codes represent the grounds for those legal statuses, such as receipt and dispatch of documents. Some examples of such legal status codes are ‘trial for invalidation of design registration,’ ‘trial to confirm scope of right,’ ‘trial for grant of non-exclusive license,’ ‘extinguishment of design right in absence of successor,’ ‘request for confidential design,’ ‘decision to reject design registration.’

IV. ICT SUPPORT TO SERVICES AND ACTIVITIES RELATED TO INDUSTRIAL DESIGN INFORMATION CARRIED OUT BY THE OFFICE

Specific software tools supporting business procedures within the Office: general description, characteristics, advantages, possible improvements

Software to support KIPO’s business procedures such as search, examination, registration, and trial is a total of 3853 applications in 161 types of the four groups as below:

- System software: 11 types (i.e., DBMS, web server, middleware)
- Package software: 37 types (including PMS, BPM, electronic approval system, Call Center, DW, messenger, career development management system, Homepage portal, DQM)
- Security software: 43 types (firewall, invasion detection or protection, DRM, integrated certificates, DB security, personal information protection tool, etc.)
- Management software: 15 types (back-up tool, performance management tool, batch scheduler, etc.)
- Others: 55 types (search engine, drawing viewer, OCR, PDF converter)

Maintenance for system software mentioned above is conducted by a separate governmentally-integrated center, while the other software is managed by KIPO headquarters.
For databases, performance tests and recovery practice tests are regularly conducted with support from Oracle. In addition, introduction and upgrades of system software such as DBMS, web servers and middleware help the KIPOnet system’s performance and functionality to be continuously improved. In order to protect personal information and prevent unpublished information, state-of-the-art security patches are applied to such software.

Hardware used to supporting business processes of the Office

- Server: 54 UNIX Enterprise servers, 110 NT servers, and 40 Linux servers
- Storage equipment: 29 Storage(1714 terabytes), 19 SANs
- Peripherals: 7 backup devices, 2 jukeboxes

In 2013, the following activities were conducted for the sake of stabilization and improvement of hardware performance:

- Eight times of configuration check for cluster-paired servers for e-filing, homepage, IPR administration, and search systems, etc.
- Firmware upgrading for 13 devices
- Shift of search index and thumbnail image data to memory disk
- Replacement of 5 memory servers for IPR administration
- Version upgrade of event-monitoring tool (i.e., OVO)
- 3rd DNS configuration to support internet services

Internal databases: coverage, updates, interlinks with external sources

The internal database is built based on applications and has been continuously updated and refined for search purpose. It contains applications (1960-, JPEG/TIFF), dossier of rejected applications (1992-1998, TIFF), registrar (1948-1991, TIFF), catalogues (1980-, TEXT/JPEG), computer generated graphic designs (2003-, TEXT/JPEG), typeface (2004-, TEXT/JPEG), two-dimensional designs (1976-, TEXT/JPEG), utility model designs (1970-, TEXT/JPEG/TIFF).

Establishment and maintenance of electronic search file: file building, updating, storage, documents from other offices included in the search file

File building and updating
To be incorporated into the search database, design data is parsed for the sake of classification and refinement and then uploaded after error verification. As part of an effort to keep or improve the quality of such data, data architecture and data value are prioritized.
Data architecture administers naming rules for logic and physical names, data type and length so that they can prevent confusion of terminology usage and improve data reusability and system efficiency. From the perspective of data value, business rules are continuously created and along with the regular measurements of data value. Finally, data with errors which occur in the process of administrative or business procedures are corrected after consultation with the departments involved.

Foreign data included in the search system
- Publication data: China (2010-), Germany (1988-), Japan (1965-), OHIM (2003-),
US (1997- ), WIPO (1999- )
- Others: computer generated graphic designs (2003-), typeface (1999-), catalogues (1999-), two-dimensional designs (2013-)

V. PROMOTION ACTIVITIES AIMED TO SUPPORT USERS IN ACCESS AND EFFICIENT USE OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN INFORMATION

Office’s library (if deals with industrial design information): equipment, collection management, network of libraries in the country, cooperation with foreign libraries

IP Library
The IP Digital Library archives design documents from five countries and one international organization, published on CD-ROM/DVD-ROM. The library also possesses 10,126 volumes of journals, magazines, catalogues, etc.

Publications related to different business procedures and industrial design information sources available to users, for example, books, brochures, Internet publications, etc.

- Business procedures: http://www.kipo.go.kr/kpo/user.tdf?a=user.english.html.HtmlApp&c=93001&catmenu=ek04_01_02

VI.INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION ACTIVITIES IN THE FIELD OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN INFORMATION

International exchange of industrial design information in machine-readable form (e.g., Official Gazettes)

KIPO has provided its official gazettes for designs to 19 offices including Australia, Canada, Germany and France on DVD-ROM and to EPO, JPO, INPIT and SIPO via FTP.
In addition, KIPO has been provided with design data from Japan, Russia, Viet Nam and Kyrgyzstan on CD-ROM and from China, Germany and USA via FTP.

VII. OTHER RELATED MATTERS

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