Patent Quality Matters | Article One Partners Blog

Featured Resource: KIPRIS

  

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In recent years the Republic of Korea has become a major player in the worldwide patent outlook.  Its patent office consistently ranks among the busiest in the world for the number of patents applied for and granted.  In fact, by those measures, it stands behind only Japan, the U.S., and China—and ahead of the European Patent Office—according to 2008 data published last year by the World International Property Organization.  Between 2004 and 2007, the rate of growth in the number of patents granted in Korea was outpaced only by growth in China and India.

Korea: Crucial for International Patent Research

The recent eminence of Korea in the patent world makes it an important source for patent researchers looking to generate leads on searches for prior art.  For Article One Researchers especially, it should be noted  that the top two IPC classes applied for in Korea in 2009 were “Electric Communication Techniques” and “Electric Elements and Electric Techniques”—crucial classifications for the kind of high-tech patents that often appear as subjects of AOP Studies.  What’s more, Japan and the U.S. lead the foreign application numbers in Korea that year, further proving Korea as an important stop for Researchers investigating patents in either of those two top patenting countries. 

Advanced Search Capability in Two Languages

Fortunately for Researchers, The Korea Intellectual Property Organization provides a quality search service for Korean patents.  The Korean Intellectual Property Rights Information Service, or KIPRIS, provides general and advanced search capability in both Korean and English, with free access to English translations of many patent abstracts.

In addition, KIPRIS offers a number of features and services outside of basic search that can help in research efforts.  The EPO (who provide the English-language abstracts for KIPRIS) offer several detailed walk-throughs and tips for using these non-search services, which can be found here.  For example, the newest of these services was added this summer: a monitoring service that gives daily, weekly, or monthly lists of new documents published within a certain set of parameters set by the researcher.  Although this service is only offered for the Korean language documents, the EPO provides a walkthrough to help English speakers navigate the Korean site, found in the link posted above.  

The ability to search patents in a country like Korea is a great opportunity for AOP Researchers to look into less obvious patent literature on the way to investigating non-patent literature.  Finding information such as inventors’ names and technical terminology can lead to fruitful search outside of patent research.  For more information on how to use KIPRIS, check out the Intellogist report on the service, as well as KIPRIS’ own search guide.