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Presented by Hyeon-Seog Cho,Ph.D. - Senior Partner/Patent Attorney
Jiwu Int'l Patent & Law Firm
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The term of a patent right is 20 years from the filing date of the patent application and the term of a utility model right is 15 years from the filing date of the U.M. application. |
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A patent can protect the product, process, and the apparatus invention. However, a U.M. is limited to only structural inventions such as the product and the apparatus. Method inventions cannot be protected by a U.M. application. Accordingly, the difference between the documents required for a patent application and those required for a U.M. application is that in the case of a U.M. application, the submission of drawings is compulsory.
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C. Number of Independent Claims |
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Since a U.M. is only allowable for structural and relatively simple inventions, Korean Law recommends that U.M. applications have only one independent claim and some dependent claims. However, if it is impossible to describe the invention with only one independent claim, U.M. can have more than one independent claim. On the other hand, the patent law does not have any such limitation clause for the patent applications.
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D. Inventive step and Novelty requirements |
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Korean law provides that patents must have a high degree of inventiveness, the level of inventiveness required of a utility model is not as high as that for a patent. However, the novelty requirement for U.M. is completely the same as the novelty requirement for a patent.
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E. No Substantial Examination |
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From July 1, 1998, there is no substantial examination for the utility model application. |
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