Let's learn a little more about intellectual property rights, especially “patent application process and specification”.
1. Patent application process
A patent application is an act where an inventor, that is, a person who wants to obtain monopoly profits through a patent, submits a patent application document to the state and requests a patent right for his/her invention. However, 'patent application = patent' is not true. A request for examination of the submitted patent must be made, which includes examination of whether the applied patent is one application, one invention, whether the applied patent possesses industrial use, whether or not the invention has inventive step or novelty, and to what extent the technology is a right, etc.. Examination requesst must be submitted within 3 years of filing a patent application, and legally, examinations are conducted in the order of claims (however, the order may be earlier if an express fee is paid). In the case of Korea, an application is published in one year and six months to promote the use of technology by third parties, thus, a strategic approach may be needed to decide when to request the examination.
The examination result is first divided into a patent decision or a rejection decision. A patent decision means that the exclusive right to an invention is recognized. When an applicant pays registration fee and registers a patent, he or she has the exclusive right to the patent. Upon receipt of the registration fee, the Patent Office announces the registration of the patent. Note that the application form and the notification of registration are different documents. The registration notice is a statement of the inventor's "rights" to the technology, not the technology itself. The decision to reject is a decision to reject first, and the examiner does not recognize the exclusivity of the patent. At this time, the examination process does not immediately end with the rejection of the patent, but leads to a process called the notice of submission of opinions by the examiner. The applicant may revise the application based on the written opinion and request reexamination.
2. Specification
Next, let's learn more about the specification, that is, the patent application. The specification is a "text describing the invention", including the title of the invention, background technology, content of the invention, technical field, problem to be solved, effect of the invention, means of solving the problem, claims, specific content for the invention, abstract, drawings , etc. and there are legally suggested requirements. A well-written specification (1) accurately specifies the scope of protection of the patented invention as a written right, and (2) serves to guide the technical content of the invention as a description so that a third party can easily implement it. It is essential for the applicant to establish a broad and robust scope of rights for a strong patent. However, caution should be exercised, as excessive extension of the right may lead to a decision to cancel or reject a patent. Usually, the scope of patent rights is announced at the time of patent registration after coordination with the examiner during the examination process. When making a patent claim, ideally, use examples faithfully, use useful expressions, clearly describe a wide range of rights, be consistent among terms throughout the specification, and satisfy the legal requirements by the patent law. In summary, the claims serve as a road map of the specification and are considered the most important element when writing a specification. In general, the preparation of a specification starts with grasping the gist of the invention, followed by specific prior art and embodiments, and then writing claims, detailed description of the invention, and a review. The review concludes by describing whether the scope is appropriate, whether the specification is entirely consistent as a single document, and whether the description is accurately conveyed.
3. Interpretation of Patent
Claims and Patent Infringement Interpretation of claims is a series of processes for determining whether or not a patent is infringed in consideration of the context of the entire specification. In other words, “the scope of the patent claims” is the premise for determining the scope of rights and determining infringement. Patent infringement refers to the practice of a 'patented invention' as a 'business' by a 'person without legitimate rights'. At this time, the judgment is made by decomposing the patented invention and the target invention into components according to the rule of component perfection, and then comparing them as components versus components. The reexamination of such patents and judgments on cases of patent infringement are in charge of the Korean Intellectual Property Office (the Tribunal), the High Court (Patent Court), and the Supreme Court.
Today, we learned about intellectual property rights, especially “patent application process and specifications”. Next time, we will have time to discuss “patent system and traditional overseas application”.
*The above is what I learned from Professor Moon's intellectual property lecture, which can be viewed through K-mooc. Here is the link to the lecture (you may not be able to view it without logging in).
kmooc.kr/courses/course-v1:YeungnamUnivK+YU21900+2021_01/course
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