South Korea published a draft amendment to the Patent Law on March 19, 2015. This draft amendment to the Patent Law will be heard first, and will be submitted to the Korean National Assembly by the end of June 2015. It is expected to be implemented in 2016 or 2017. The draft amendment is worthwhile. Note:

1. Shorten the time for requesting substantive examination. The time limit for substantive examination of invention patent requests is shortened from 5 years to 3 years (if it is a PCT national phase application, it will be counted from the international filing date).

2. Ex-officio re-examination (new regulations). If the examiner finds any new and obvious reasons for disapproval of the patent after issuing the approval notice but before the applicant pays the license fee, the examiner may withdraw the approval notice and re-examine it ex officio.

3. Request for revocation of issued patents (new regulations). For issued patents, in addition to the patent invalidation procedure in the current patent law, the draft has new provisions for filing a request for revocation. In other words, anyone who wants to revoke an issued patent can submit reasons to the Korea Intellectual Property Trial and Appeal Board within 6 months from the date of patent issuance. Once the grounds for revocation of the patent are submitted to the Korea Intellectual Property Trial and Appeal Board, the board will re-examine the patent. If the reexamination of the patent determines that the patent lacks novelty or inventive step, the patentee will still have the opportunity to assert the patentability argument of the patent. When making arguments, the patentee can also propose amendments to narrow the scope of the patent application. In addition, the patentee can appeal the decision of the Intellectual Property Office to revoke the patent through the Korean Patent Court.

4. Prior notice of patent invalidation trial (new regulations). Before issuing a patent invalidation trial, the Korea Intellectual Property Trial and Appeal Board shall issue an advance notice of the patent invalidation trial to the patentee. If the patent is likely to be invalid under the prior notice, the patentee may seek to avoid the substantial invalidation of the patent by narrowing the scope of the patent.