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Outline of main policies and plans aimed at development of industrial design information activities and expected time frames for their realization
New projects launched or resumed this year in the context of the policies(plans) mentioned above, short description: aims, partners, tasks
Main areas of industrial design information activities and related information and communication technology (ICT) practices which were in the focus of attention last year
Statistics: changes in terms of application filings and grants (registrations) with respect to previous year; trends or areas experiencing rapid changes
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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:
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Availability of the application dossier in electronic form
All design applications filed at KIPO are made available in electronic format for its administrative processing including examination, publication, and trial. Approximately 96.1 percent of the total design applications (i.e., 64,683 applications) filed to KIPO in 2015 have made available in electronic form from being filed online by applicants 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 2015, 3271 design applications were digitalized.
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Classification and reclassification activities; classification system used, e.g., International Classification for Industrial Designs (Locarno Classification), other classification
Beginning July 1, 2014, applicants are obliged to put the Locarno Classification when filing their applications. In the meantime, KIPO uses its own classification system for design, which is comprised of 13 categories and 75 main classes for earlier designs and cross-references the Locarno Classification on official gazettes.
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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.
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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=4135&catmenu=m03_03_02) 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 three domestic entities, twice a month. The gazettes on design published in 2015 contained 1568 design applications and 55,226 design registrations.
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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:
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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), full text from gazette data (in XML/PDF format from 1998 onwards), and legal status data. KIPRIS also provides design information from JPO, USPTO and WIPO. Searches and retrieval of such data by international classification were made possible due to the revision of KIPO’s design regulation in 2014. In addition, search services for international designs began along with the Copy & Paste of search results at KIPRIS to SNS, such as Twitter and Facebook, in 2015.
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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 72 kinds of legal status codes and 129 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.’ As of the end of 2015, it had a database pertaining to 301 thousand designs.
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Specific software tools supporting business procedures within the Office: general description, characteristics, advantages, possible improvements
There are a total of 4122 software applications to support KIPO’s business procedures such as search, examination, registration, and trial in 175 types of the five groups, as below:
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Hardware used to supporting business processes of the Office
• Server: 52 UNIX Enterprise servers, 111 NT servers, and 145 Linux servers
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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-, JPG/TIFF), dossier of rejected applications (1992-1998, TIFF), registrar (1948-1991, TIFF), catalogues (1980-, TEXT/JPG), computer generated graphic designs (2003-, TEXT/JPG), typeface (2004-, TEXT/JPG), two-dimensional designs (1976-, TEXT/JPG), utility model designs (1970-, TEXT/JPG/TIFF).
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Establishment and maintenance of electronic search file: file building, updating, storage, documents from other offices included in the search file
File building and updating
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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, which are published on CD-ROM or DVD-ROM. The library also possesses 11,387 volumes of design-related journals, magazines and books that were either donated or purchased. The general public is allowed to access to this collection for search and copy services.
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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
Cooperation with universities, technology and innovation support centers, etc.
Education and training: training courses, e learning modules (URLs), seminars, exhibitions, etc.
Other activities
VI.INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION ACTIVITIES IN THE FIELD OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN INFORMATION
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International exchange of industrial design information in machine-readable form (e.g., Official Gazettes)
KIPO has provided its official gazettes for designs to 11 offices including China, Japan, and the United States of America via FTP. In reverse, KIPO has been provided with design data from Kyrgyzstan and Slovakia on CD-ROM and from ARIPO, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Estonia, EUIPO, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Latvia, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Philippines, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, the United State of America, Viet Nam, and WIPO via FTP. Participation in international or regional activities and projects related to industrial design information
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