Lee International

In 2022, a new administration, under President Yoon, announced that various policies would be prepared to foster the semiconductor industry.  As a measure of support, the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) decided to shorten the examination period by subjecting the semiconductor-related patent application for expedited examination. 

Under expedited examination, a patent application meeting certain criteria would be given priority, thereby shortening the examination period, upon request by an applicant.  In the Enforcement Decree of the Korean Patent Act, which lists inventions subject to expedited examination, only “intelligent semiconductors” are considered to “utilize the 4th industrial revolution-related technologies,” and thus, inventions related to such were only accepted for expedited examination in the semiconductor field until now.

The revisions in the Enforcement Decree of the Korean Patent Act promulgated and taken effect on November 1, 2022 added patent applications in the cutting-edge technologies (such as semiconductors) that are important to the national economy and national competitiveness (limited to patent applications and a designated period of time announced by the Commissioner of KIPO), thereby temporarily availing semiconductor-related patent applications for expedited examination for a year until October 31, 2023.  It is expected to shorten the examination period for these applications to about 2.5 months upon request.  

However, according to the revisions announced by KIPO, expedited examination would be available for patent applications assigned with semiconductor-related patent classification codes (H01L, G11C, G01R, H05K, H01S, G03F, C23C, H01J, B24B, B41J, C30B), which are filed by businesses that are in manufacturing or preparing to manufacture semiconductor-related products or devices in Korea, are directed to outcomes of national research and development projects, or are filed by Korean universities specialized for semiconductors.  

The revisions exclude semiconductor-related patent applications filed by foreign applicants that do not have production facilities in Korea.  Nevertheless, these foreign applicants may expedite examination of semiconductor-related patent applications through currently available procedures by, for example, requesting a prior art search by the applicant individually or using the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) program.