Newsletter
DRAFT REGULATIONS ON ELECTRONIC FILING OF PAT-ENT APPLICATIONS
To promote greater efficiency in patent exami-nations, and for the convenience of data use, the Intellectual Property Office (IPO), after studying practice in the USA, South Korea, and Europe, recently announced draft Regulations Governing the Electronic Submission of Patent-Related Applications pursuant to the power granted un-der Article 19 of the Patent Act. The main points are as follows:
Electronic patent-related application docu-ments as referred to in the draft Regulations are to have the same legal force as paper documents.
The IPO should announce the types of pat-ent-related application that may be filed elec-tronically, and the procedures for such filing, three months before beginning to accept such applications.
Before using the electronic application facility, a user should complete the following proce-dures: (1) obtain an electronic certificate is-sued by a certificate issuer designated by the Patent Authority, and (2) confirm its accep-tance of an agreement governing electronic applications, and register related data, on a website prescribed by the Patent Authority.
An electronically delivered application document must comply with the required file format and use the electronic application software as prescribed by the Patent Authority, and a valid digital signature must be attached.
On receiving a duly submitted electronic ap-plication document, the Patent Authority should immediately send the user a notifica-tion confirming the receipt..
If all or part of an electronic application document is unreadable, or the document is incomplete, the entire document will be deemed not to have been electronically deliv-ered. If a document contains a virus, it will be deemed to be unreadable.
Notification by the Patent Authority pursuant to Articles 7 to 9 of the Regulations (notice of successful receipt, noncompliance, unread-ability, or incompleteness) should be made by electronic mail or another means provided by the Patent Authority. No physical notification letter will be delivered.
Except originals are otherwise required, documents in support of an electronic appli-cation may be submitted as PDF files or as image files, and accompanied by a declaration that they are true copies of the originals.
The Patent Authority must retain for verifica-tion purposes the original version of any elec-tronic application document received from a user.
The time of receipt of a document electroni-cally delivered is the time of receipt recorded by the Patent Authority's data system.
We will closely follow the progress of the draft Regulations and keep readers updated.