Today, we would like to learn about intellectual property rights, especially “patents”.
1. Intellectual property rights?
Intellectual property rights refer to the rights to be legally protected among the results of human intellectual activities, and are broadly divided into industrial property rights, copyrights, and new intellectual property rights. First of all, copyright refers to the right to play, music, broadcasting, or textbooks used in schools as creations in the fields of culture and art. New intellectual property rights are a new area of intellectual property rights that emerged along with the development of industry. It is a property that created values by merging with information technology (IT), such as calculation methods, taxation methods, and game methods, which were not protected by industrial property rights in the past. These include semiconductor circuit design, biotechnology rights, software rights, and database rights.
2. What are industrial property rights?
Industrial property rights are divided into patents, utility models, design rights, and trademark rights. A patent refers to a highly advanced technical creation using the laws of nature. A utility model refers to an invention that falls within the category of practical technical improvement. Design right refers to rights related to the shape, color or combination of those, and trademark right refers to symbols, characters, figures, or combinations of those that can be distinguished from other products. Among them, the utility model, which is a practical improvement category of simple technology, is not used much these days and is often processed as a patent, or no patent.
Taking 'automobile' as an example, the development of major parts such as the engine of a car is protected by a patent, the invention related to the secondary technology headlight is protected as a utility model, and information that causes visual aesthetics such as the shape and color of the car is protected by design. The name of the car is protected by the trademark. Each of these elements of a motor vehicle is protected by appropriate intellectual property rights for a different duration. Patents and design rights are 20 years from the filing date, utility models are 10 years from the filing date, and trademark rights are 10 years from the registration date, but can be renewed every 10 years.
3. What is a patent?
Let's learn a little more about patents. Patents are protections for all inventions, and according to Article 1 of the Patent Act in Korea, “to promote technological development by protecting inventions and facilitating their use to promote industrial development”. If we define 'invention' here, it is 'creation and advanced thing of technical ideas through the laws of nature', and includes abstract and objective technical ideas rather than concrete technologies. However, what should be distinguished from 'discovery' is that discovery is a different concept from invention because it simply discovers what existed. Infringement of protection of inventions, that is, infringement of patents, is subject to civil and criminal liability. By granting an exclusive property right called a patent right only to the inventor, the private interest of the inventor is promoted. In addition, by introducing the application publication system, the public can know about the invention technology so that the invention can be used, and the private interest of the inventor and the public interest are harmoniously pursued by facilitating the development of the technology and industrial development.
How, then, can the requirements of a patent be defined? As the requirements of a patent, there are subjectivity requirements, object requirements, and procedural requirements. The subject requirements are the requirements for who can have the right to an invention, and the object requirements are whether the invention meets the law, that is, the industry. It is a requirement for something new, or advanced, to be available for use. The active patent requirement refers to the requirements that an invention must meet, and the passive patent requirement refers to the requirements that the invention must not be covered by. Finally, the procedural requirement is whether or not the invention is well described in a way that satisfies the law. In addition, when examining a patent, the examiner decides on the novelty or inventive step of the patent. The novelty literally relates to whether the described patent is the first or not, and the inventive step is about how advanced it is compared to the existing technology.
Today, we took a closer look at intellectual property rights, especially “patents”. In the next post, we will learn about the patent application process and specifications.
*I am not a professional in the field of IP. I am a student. And, the translation is by Google and my insufficient English skills. I wanted to deliver the IP related contents in the perspectives of a student. I hope my blog helps people like me.
*The above is my learning from lectures by Prof. Moon available at K-Mooc. Link to the course is as below: kmooc.kr/courses/course-v1:YeungnamUnivK+YU21900+2021_01/course
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