A forum of the world’s five largest intellectual property offices, known as IP5, emphasized its new vision for a stronger and more flexible intellectual property system that can adapt to the fourth industrial revolution at an event marking 10 years of global cooperation.

The heads of IP5, including Lee Young-dae, acting commissioner of the Korean Intellectual Property Office, gathered together in Valletta, Malta on May 31 and June 1 to take stock of all the achievements made by the offices the past decade and set up a new blueprint for the future direction of office’s initiatives.

“The IP5 has played a pivotal role in the development of the global IPR system in the last 10 years since the IP5 system was launched in 2007,” said Lee in an interview with The Korea Herald.

“At the meeting, IP5 adopted a new vision of cooperation, aimed at creating a user-friendly international patent environment in order to recognize the achievements of the past decade and to confirm the achievements so far and to cope with the rapidly changing environment.”

Combined, IP5 handles roughly 80 percent of the world’s patent applications and 95 percent of all work carried out under the Patent Cooperation Treaty.

Established in 2008, IP5 members include the Korean Intellectual Property Office, European Patent Office, Japan Patent Office, the State Intellectual Property Office of the People’s Republic of China and the United States Patent and Trademark Office. 

According to Lee, the patent offices have adopted a new vision to cope with the fourth industrial revolution.

The IP5 heads claimed that in order to promote innovation and growth, the protection of patent rights should be strengthened and a strong and flexible intellectual property system should be established.

“IP5 and industry officials discussed the potential effects of the fourth industrial revolution on various technological fields as well as effects of the revolution on patent applications, patent classification and examination practices,” said Lee.

“The new cooperation vision of IP5 is to promote an efficient and user-friendly international patent environment, which is a cost-effective and user-friendly international patent landscape,” he added. 

“This is to cope with rapidly changing international intellectual property rights environment such as new artificial intelligence, Internet of things, increasingly overlapping IP5 applications and changing user demands.”

As part of its new future vision, the patent offices have also agreed to launch the Patent Cooperation Treaty Collaborative Review pilot program next year on May 1. 

The PCT is an examination process that consists of an international phase that determines patentability through prior art searches and a national phase, which determines the final patent status after entering a country.

IP5’s PCT collaborative review will focus on enhancing the credibility of the patentability judgment by complementing the strengths and weaknesses of each agency’s language and technology field through joint examination.

“As a result, it is expected that the examination burden will be reduced in the national phase and will further ensure the security of an applicant’s rights,” Lee said. 

“In order for the pilot project to operate successfully, Korea will cooperate closely with IP5 to set up detailed operational standards and take measures to ensure that user convenience will be enhanced through this pilot program.”

By Julie Jackson and Lee Kwon-hyoung, (juliejackson@heraldcorp.com) (kwonhl@heraldcorp.com)