KIPO Establishes Hotlines for Materials, Parts, and Equipment to Support Intellectual Property Dispute Resolution

The Korean Intellectual Property Office opened the "Intellectual Property Rights Dispute Response Center" at the Korea Intellectual Property Protection Agency in November last year. The response center will play a role in strengthening support for domestic export companies in responding to intellectual property rights disputes. Officials from the Korean Intellectual Property Office gathered for the opening ceremony of the response center. Photo by the Korean Intellectual Property Office

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] The Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) is establishing a hotline with material, parts, and equipment companies to support intellectual property disputes for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in this sector.

KIPO announced on the 17th that it will invest 17.1 billion KRW this year to build a hotline with SMEs that have relatively limited capabilities in responding to intellectual property disputes, focusing on dispute information monitoring and customized dispute response strategy consulting.

Support will be centered around the "Intellectual Property Dispute Response Center." The Response Center was launched at the end of last year and will actively promote overseas intellectual property protection projects this year.

First, the Response Center plans to place emphasis on expanding contact points with material, parts, and equipment companies. To closely support the material, parts, and equipment industry, where technology localization is progressing, the Response Center will operate a "Material, Parts, and Equipment Patent Dispute Task Force" and provide companies with online information on dispute trends and response procedures by dispute type.

Additionally, a "Material, Parts, and Equipment Patent Dispute Advisory Group" will be formed and operated to provide preemptive dispute risk diagnosis, initial dispute consultations, and prior art advice on disputed patents to these companies. Video consultation sessions between companies and the advisory group will be held semiannually.

Monitoring and guidance on intellectual property dispute trends will also be conducted simultaneously. For example, until now, intellectual property dispute monitoring has focused mainly on infringement lawsuits centered in the United States. However, going forward, the scope will be expanded to Japan, Europe, and China, collecting and analyzing opposition and invalidation trial information in the material, parts, and equipment sector to provide to companies.

In particular, KIPO's strategy includes expanding monitoring of unauthorized trademark registrations by overseas trademark brokers and the distribution of counterfeit products online overseas, promptly informing companies of damages, and strengthening follow-up measures such as legal response support.

Furthermore, KIPO plans for dispute experts (PMs) at the Response Center to use information collected through monitoring and the hotline to collaborate with patent law firms and present customized response strategies tailored to the dispute situations of individual companies.

Above all, for companies involved in patent infringement lawsuits or overseas trademark disputes, KIPO intends to simplify application and examination procedures to enable legal responses within two weeks for effective support.

Jung Yeon-woo, Director of the Industrial Property Protection Cooperation Bureau at KIPO, said, "As protectionism spreads worldwide and the global value chains of export companies are reorganized, intellectual property disputes are expected to increase further. Through the Response Center, KIPO will spare no effort to support domestic export companies in overcoming these crises."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.