Newsletter EXPEDITED EXAMINATION IN KOREA: EXPANSION OF PATENT PROSECUTION HIGHWAY PROVIDES MORE OPTIONS TO APPLICANTS CONTENTS PATENT PATENT

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1 Newsletter A Quarterly Update of Korean IP Law & Policy Fall 2011 CONTENTS PATENT 1. Expedited Examination in Korea: Expansion of Patent Prosecution Highway Provides More Options to Applicants 2. New Precedent - KTC Finds Patent Invalid for the First Time 3. Strengthening the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights Based on the Free Trade Agreement Between Korea and the European Union 4. Court Order Prohibiting Manufacture, Sale and Export of Products Using Trade Secrets 5. New Requirement Regarding Background Art Disclosure in Specification of Patent Application TRADEMARK & COPYRIGHT 6. The Korea-EU Free Trade Agreement and Amendments to IP Laws 7. Third Party Can Request for the Expedited Examination of Trademark Applications 8. Court Indicates Term of Copyright Protection in its Decision FIRM NEWS PATENT EXPEDITED EXAMINATION IN KOREA: EXPANSION OF PATENT PROSECUTION HIGHWAY PROVIDES MORE OPTIONS TO APPLICANTS By Yena KIM and Stephen T. BANG The Korean Intellectual Property Office ("KIPO") and the United States Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO") recently agreed to expand the Patent Prosecution Highway ("PPH") program to utilize Patent Cooperation Treaty results (PCT-PPH) on a pilot basis, starting July 1, Although the USPTO has been operating the PCT-PPH pilot program utilizing KIPO's PCT work product since October 6, 2010, under the newly expanded pilot program, the PCT work product generated by either one of the two offices can be used to enter the PPH in the other office. This article briefly explains the impact of this change and introduces the examination system in Korea. Under Korean patent practice, patent applications are examined according to a three (3)-track examination system, which has been available since October 1, Under the three (3)-track examination system, applicants are allowed to choose expedited (accelerated), normal (default), or deferred examination. Under the normal examination track, a first office action is issued within about months from the request for examination. There are 3 types of expedited examination available: "General" expedited examination, expedited examination accompanying a prior art search, and PPH. 1. "General" Expedited Examination Examination of an application may be expedited if a petition for expedited examination satisfying certain requirements and supporting evidence (in some cases) is submitted to KIPO. If an application meets the requirements for general expedited examination, a first office action may be issued within about 2-4 months from an applicant's petition for expedited examination. To qualify for general expedited examination, the applicant must meet one of the following statutory categories: a) Third-party practice (a third party is practicing the claimed invention in Korea); b) Self-practice (the applicant or its licensee is practicing the claimed invention commercially in Korea); c) The application is related to electronic transactions; d) The application is directly related to green technology;

2 e) A number of other statutory grounds that mostly apply to applicants that are domestic entities (e.g., the application is related to defense industry, prevention of pollution, inventions by government employees, domestic venture business, inventions by government-designated companies, national research project, etc.). Except for the case of a third-party practice, an applicant must also conduct a prior art search related to the claimed invention, disclose the relevant prior art references found in the search, and submit explanations on the comparison between the claimed invention (for each claim) and the prior art references in the petition for expedited examination. For this reason, some applicants are less inclined to request "general" expedited examination. 2. Expedited Examination accompanying a Prior Art Search (available since Oct. 1, 2008) Examination of an application may be advanced out of turn if a search is first conducted by a KIPO-designated search agency and those results are submitted directly to KIPO. An applicant may request this method of expedited examination by (a) requesting a prior art search from one of four KIPO-designated search agencies, accompanied by a request to have the search results forwarded to KIPO; and (b) submitting a petition for expedited examination and petition fee to KIPO. In addition, a separate prior art search fee is charged by the search agency, which depends on the number of independent claims. Expedited examination accompanying a prior art search is granted as a matter of right. Once a notice of grant of expedited examination is issued from KIPO in response to the applicant's petition for expedited examination accompanying a prior art search, the application proceeds to examination within 4 months of the notice. Significantly, under expedited examination accompanying a prior art search, the applicant is not required to disclose any other prior art references (aside from those found by the KIPO-designated search agency), and is not required to submit any explanation regarding the comparison between the claimed invention and the prior art references. For this reason, this method of expedited examination is more attractive than "general" expedited examination. 3. Patent Prosecution Highway ( PPH ) Prior examination of the patent application by a foreign patent office resulting in positive examination results provides another ground for expedited examination. KIPO currently participates in the PPH program with the following foreign patent offices: JPO (Japan), USPTO (US), DKPTO (Denmark), UK-IPO (UK), CIPO (Canada), FIPS (Russia), PRH (Finland) and DPMA (Germany). Recently, KIPO launched a pilot PPH program with SPTO (Spain) on July 1, Under the PPH program, subject to certain conditions, if an applicant first files an application in one of the above foreign patent offices and then receives a positive examination results from the foreign office that the claims are patentable, the applicant may request KIPO to expedite the examination of those same (or narrower) claims in corresponding Korean applications. PPH leverages expedited patent examination procedures to allow applicants the opportunity to obtain Korean counterpart patents faster and more efficiently. For example, to expedite a Korean application under the PPH program between the USPTO and KIPO, the following Korean patent applications are eligible: (i) an application that claims priority to the corresponding USPTO application; (ii) an application that enters the Korean national phase based on a PCT application, which claims priority to the corresponding USPTO application; (iii) an application that enters the Korean national phase based on a PCT application, which has no priority claim and indicates both KIPO and USPTO as Designated Offices (DO); or (iv) an application that claims priority to a PCT application that has no priority claim. To file a petition for expedited examination based on USPTO-KIPO PPH, the claims of a Korean application should be essentially the same as, or narrower than, the allowed/patented U.S. claims. To participate in the USPTO-KIPO PPH program, the following must be provided: a copy and a translation of the claims determined to be allowable/patentable by the USPTO; copies and translations of office actions in the USPTO if they are not already available on the USPTO website; copies of prior art references cited by the USPTO examiner (if any); a claim correspondence table between the Korean claims and US claims; and a petition fee paid to KIPO. In addition, as discussed above, the USPTO and KIPO agreed to expand the PPH pilot program utilizing Patent Cooperation Treaty results (PCT-PPH) beginning July 1, 2011 and ending on May 31, Under the newly expanded pilot program, the PCT work product generated by one of the two offices can be used to enter the PPH program in the other office. According to KIPO, the trial period may be extended if necessary until KIPO and USPTO receive a sufficient number of PCT-PPH requests to adequately assess the feasibility of the PCT-PPH program. 2 IP Newsletter

3 The Korean application on which the applicant files a request for the PCT-PPH must satisfy the following requirements: a) The latest work product in the international phase of a PCT application corresponding to the application ( international work product ), namely the Written Opinion of International Search Authority (WO/ISA), the Written Opinion of International Preliminary Examination Authority (WO/IPEA) or the International Preliminary Examination Report (IPER), indicates at least one claim as patentable/allowable. b) The relationship between the application and the corresponding international application satisfies one of the following: (i) the application is a national phase application or a national application as a basis of the priority claim of the corresponding international application; (ii) the application is a national phase application of an international application claiming priority from the corresponding international application; (iii) the application is a national application claiming foreign/domestic priority from the corresponding international application; or (iv) the application is the derivative application (divisional application and application claiming domestic priority etc.) of the application which satisfies one of the above requirements (i) (iii). c) All claims on file, as originally filed or as amended, for examination under the PCT-PPH must sufficiently correspond to one or more of those claims indicated to be patentable/allowable in the latest international work product of the corresponding international application. d) A Request for Examination must have been filed. The formal requirements for participating in the PCT-PPH program are substantially the same as the USPTO-KIPO PPH program. That is, to participate in the pilot PCT-PPH program, the following must be provided: a copy and a translation of the claims which the latest international work product of the corresponding international application indicated to be patentable/allowable; a copy and a translation of the latest international work product if they are not available on the WIPO website; copies of prior art references cited in the latest international work product (if any); a claims correspondence table indicating how all claims in the application sufficiently correspond to the claims indicated to be patentable/allowable; and a petition fee paid to KIPO. If KIPO grants the applicant s petition for expedited examination based either the USPTO-KIPO PPH or PCT- PPH programs, the application proceeds to examination within 4 months of the notice of the grant. According to KIPO, due to the expansion of commencement of the PPH and PCT-PPH pilot programs, the examination period is expected to be shortened by over a year (reduced from 18 months to 5 months). 4. Pros and cons of Each Type of Expedited Examination in Korea The types of expedited examination discussed above can be summarized as follows: General Expedited Examination Expedited Examination accompanying a Prior Art Search Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) (e.g. USPTO- KIPO PPH) (Pilot) PCT- PPH Program Basic Criteria - File petition meeting criteria under Korean Patent Act (subject to review for eligibility) - Conduct self prior art search, submit relevant prior art, and submit explanation of patentability over submitted prior art - Pay petition fee - File petition (granted as a matter of right) - 3rd-party prior art search report conducted by KIPO-designated search agency - Pay petition fee - Positive examination results from foreign patent office participating in PPH program with KIPO - Meet PPH criteria (same or narrower claims, claim chart, etc.) - File petition (granted as a matter of right if PPH criteria met) - Pay petition fee - Positive examination results from international work product (WO/ISA, WO/IPEA, or IPER) - Meet criteria for relationship to international application - Meet PPH criteria (same or narrower claims, claim chart, etc.) - File request for examination - File petition (granted as a matter of right if PPH criteria met) - Pay petition fee Timing until 1 st Office Action 2-4 months from petition 4 months from petition 2-4 months from petition 2-4 months from petition Fall

4 In terms of examination fees, general expedited examination and PPH are advantageous in that no additional search fee is required. However, expedited examination accompanying a prior art search requires a separate prior art search fee. In terms of availability, general expedited examination is strictly limited to situations defined under the Korean Patent Act and in the case of Third-Party Practice, which requires a showing of infringement by a third-party, the application could be subject to increased scrutiny by the examiner. PPH is also limited to the situations where the same claims of the corresponding foreign application have been already allowed in one of the foreign patent offices that participate in the PPH program with KIPO. In this regard, in terms of coverage, expedited examination accompanying a prior art search is advantageous in that it is applicable to all applications and could have a reduced chance of invoking increased scrutiny from the Examiner (compared to third-party practice under general expedited examination). As discussed above, it is generally most advantageous to expedite an application using either the PPH or PCT- PPH programs if possible (if claims are allowed or positive examination results are provided in international work product). If PPH or PCT-PPH is not available (because claims are not yet allowed or no positive international work product has been issued), expedited examination accompanying a prior art search is the next best option for expediting an application, taking into consideration the various drawbacks of general expedited examination. The pros and cons of the types of expedited examination can be summarized as follows: General Expedited Examination Pros - No additional search fee Cons - Strictly limited to situations defined under the Korean Patent Act - In case of Third-Party Practice may invoke increased scrutiny by an examiner Expedited Examination accompanying a Prior Art Search - Applicable to ALL applications - Reduced chance of increased scrutiny (compared to thirdparty practice under General Expedited Examination) - Additional search fee Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) (Pilot) PCT- PPH Program - No additional search fee - No additional search fee - Limited to situations where the same claims have been already allowed in the foreign patent office (in PPH program with KIPO) - Limited to situations where the international work product indicates positive examination results 4 IP Newsletter

5 NEW PRECEDENT - KTC FINDS PATENT INVALID FOR THE FIRST TIME By In Hwan KIM and Sung Hoon LEE The Korean Trade Commission ( KTC ) has recently dismissed its investigation of unfair trade practices after finding that the asserted patent is invalid (see KTC Case No ). Specifically, Precision System Science Co., Ltd. petitioned the KTC to investigate the exportation of allegedly infringing products by Bioneer Corp. However, the KTC ruled in favor of Bioneer Corp. after finding that the patent asserted by Precision System lacked inventiveness and cannot be enforced. In the past, the KTC has denied investigations after the asserted patents have been invalidated by the Korean Intellectual Property Office ( KIPO ). Through this case, however, the KTC has taken the position that it has the authority to decide questions of patent validity on its own even before any KIPO or judicial decisions are rendered. KTC investigations are sometimes preferred over court actions since they are generally faster and can uncover evidence of infringement. However, they were often limited or delayed especially when there were questions of patent validity. With this decision, the KTC now seems to be taking the position that it is empowered to decide issues of patent validity on its own, thereby increasing the breadth of the issues that it can consider in its investigations. STRENGTHENING THE PROTECTION OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS BASED ON THE FREE TRADE AGREEMENT BETWEEN KOREA AND THE EUROPEAN UNION By Ju Young KIM and Gregory B. KANG Recently, the Korean Customs Act has been revised in accordance with the Free Trade Agreement between Korea and the EU (hereinafter, Korea-EU FTA ) effective as of July 1, Under the prior version of the Customs Act, goods which infringe trademarks and copyrights are prohibited from being exported or imported. The revised Customs Act now also prohibits the export/import of goods which infringe IP rights in the following areas as set forth in Article 235 of the revised Customs Act: i) plant variety protection rights registered under the Seed Industry Act 1, ii) geographical indication rights 2, iii) patent rights, and iv) design rights. 1 Under the current Plant Variety Protection (PVP) system in Korea, plant varieties are protected by the Seed Industry Act except the specific species designated by the Notice of the Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. The current notice, which became effective as of May 1, 2009, designates strawberries, raspberries, tangerines, blueberries, cherries, and seaweed as being excluded from protection. Novelty, distinctiveness, uniformity, stability and variety name are required for the grant and/or protection for a plant variety. According to the preliminary announcement of August 10, 2011 by the Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the PVP system will be governed by new legislation New Plant Variety Protection Act, and the protection scope will be extended to all the plant varieties in Geographical indication rights are the rights given to the owner of the geographical indication registered under Article 8 of the Agricultural Products Quality Control Act or Article 9 of the Fishery Products Quality Control Act. Fall

6 The provisions regarding the plant variety protection rights under the Seed Industry Act and the geographical indication rights are enforceable under the Customs Act as of the effective date of the Korea-EU FTA (July 1, 2011), whereas the patent and design rights are enforceable under the Customs Act two (2) years after the effective date of the Korea-EU FTA. The Korean Customs Service recently revised their procedures and issued a Notice on Import and Export Customs Clearance for the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights. The Notice addresses the following areas as set forth below: a) Goods and types of intellectual property rights being reviewed during customs inspection for clearance - Enlarging the protection scope of the intellectual property rights to plant variety protection rights under the Seed industry Act, geographical indication rights as well as trademarks and copyrights. - Enlarging the protection scope of goods to goods for transshipment, complex transshipment, carryingin the bonded area, bonded transportation, and temporary landing, as well as goods for import and export. b) Definition of terms based on the enlargement of the rights to be protected - Adding the following terms to the definition of terms: plant variety protection right, exclusive licensee, and geographical indication right. - Adding packing materials and trademark symbols such as labels to the definition of counterfeit goods. c) Provisions on the manner and effect of customs declarations for the newly added intellectual property rights - Stipulation of provisions on the manner and effect/ loss of effect of declarations for plant variety protection rights and geographical indication rights which are newly protected in customs clearance. d) Treatment in light of the enlargement of subject goods - Possible for customs not only to prevent import/ export, but also to maintain custody of goods in accordance with the enlargement of the scope of protection for intellectual property rights. COURT ORDER PROHIBITING MANUFACTURE, SALE AND EXPORT OF PRODUCTS USING TRADE SECRETS By Jay Young-June YANG and Ji Eun LEE The Seoul Central District Court recently issued an injunction in favor of a company ( Company A ) whose former employees took Company A s trade secrets when they left the company and used them in developing a competitor s new automobile ( Company B ). The injunction prohibits Company B from manufacturing, request for manufacturing, transferring, selling, leasing, exporting and any other disposal of the relevant half-finished products and parts of automobiles for a period of 3 years from the date the injunction order becomes final and conclusive. The court s order was issued based on the following facts: (i) the ex-employees were mainly engaged in developing and manufacturing automobiles during their employment with Company A; (ii) when they left Company A, they actively engaged in collecting materials containing the company s trade secrets, such as blueprints/drawings, 3-dimensional models, test results, technology standard materials, and the like by downloading them to their computers; (iii) after terminating their employment with Company A, they joined Company B and made reference to and used those blueprints/drawings and technology standard materials for all components and constituents of Company A s automobile of the same class, including body, chassis, engine and transmission, design, power-train interface to develop a new automobile for Company B. As a result, Company B presumably saved a substantial amount of time, money and effort which it would have been otherwise required to spend in developing the automobile on its own - for example, formulating concepts and drawing basic designs, which are necessary in the early stage of the development; (iv) such misappropriation of Company A s trade secrets was not an 6 IP Newsletter

7 accidental act of some employees, but rather a systematic and organized scheme where Company B s representative officers and directors were involved. Company B completed the development of the new automobile based on the trade secrets that were taken from Company A, manufactured parts and half-finished products, and exported them to its headquarter in Russia, where they were later assembled, produced and sold as finished automobiles in the market. The Court determined that the three-year injunction period was proper considering various factors, including the noncompetition period stipulated in the employment agreements between Company A and its ex-employees involved in this case; the rapid growth in automobile technology; and Company B s experience, technology and know-how in developing automobiles. It also ordered the destruction of the half-finished products and parts that were already manufactured and stored in Company B s offices, factories, and stores. Kim & Chang represented Company A and was instrumental in securing the injunction. NEW REQUIREMENT REGARDING BACKGROUND ART DISCLOSURE IN SPECIFICATION OF PATENT APPLICATION By Ju Young KIM and Alice Young-Ran CHOI Under the amended Korean Patent Act, effective as of July 1, 2011, an applicant wishing to obtain a patent is required to describe the background art of the invention in the detailed explanation of the invention in the patent application. The background art indicates prior art technologies which are helpful for understanding the technical meaning and significance of the invention and are useful for the prior art search and examination. According to the Korean Intellectual Property Office ( KIPO ), in principle, both a detailed explanation of the background art and prior art reference bibliographic information should be included in the detailed explanation of the invention in the specification. However, either the detailed explanation of the background art or information on the prior art reference could be recognized as a description of background art. Further, the described background art should be related to the invention defined in the claims. In determining whether or not background art is properly described in the specification, KIPO considers the circumstances in the relevant industrial field, the accumulation of conventional technologies, the activities of the applicant/inventor relating to research and development in the industrial field, and the like. If it is determined that the background art is not properly described, the KIPO examiner may issue a preliminary rejection. A third party, however, cannot raise the issue of improper background art disclosure during the prosecution of a patent application or after the patent is granted via an information submission or an invalidation action. In response to a preliminary rejection based on improper disclosure of background art, the applicant may add information to the detailed explanation of the invention regarding the prior art reference describing the background art. According to KIPO, it may be allowable to add brief information of the prior art reference, such as the publication number/date, e.g., Korean Laid-Open Patent Publication No (April 25, 2002) and the background art of the present invention is described in Korean Laid-Open Patent Publication No However, adding a detailed description of the prior art reference to the specification may not be allowed on the grounds that new matter is being added. Fall

8 TRDEMARK & COPYRIGHT THE KOREA-EU FREE TRADE AGREEMENT AND AMENDMENTS TO IP LAWS By Jason J. LEE The Korea-EU Free Trade Agreement (FTA) went into effect on July 1, 2011, and the following Intellectual Property related Acts have been amended: 1. Trademark Act: To Prohibit Registrations of Trademarks for Protected Geographical Indications ( GIs ) The Trademark Act prevents the registration of trademarks similar or identical to GIs for wines, spirits, and agricultural products protected under the bilateral or multilateral FTA with Korea. Based on the Korea-EU FTA, 162 European Union GIs can be protected, such as Chianti, Toscana, Cognac, Scotch Whisky, Gorgonzola, and Feta. 2. UCPA: To Prohibit Third Party s Use of Protected GIs Under the amended UCPA, a third party may not use the protected GIs (i) for any other purpose aside from identifying the true origin, (ii) that are translated or transliterated, or (iii) accompanied by expressions such as kind, type, style, imitation or the like, on goods that do not originate from the place indicated by the GI in question. However, there are exceptions as long as (i) prior use of the mark began before July 1, 2011 and (ii) the mark became recognized by consumers. 3. Design Protection Act: To Include Exporting as Working of a Design The definition of working was amended in the Design Protection Act to include acts of exporting, in addition to manufacturing, using, assigning, leasing, importing or offering for assignment or lease, the article to which the design has been applied. Thus, the act of exporting itself can be design infringement if it is not authorized by the owner. 4. Copyright Act: To Extend the Term of Copyright Protection, etc. The term of copyright protection is extended to 70 years after the author s death or 70 years from the date of publication. The amended provision will take effect on July 1, 2013, which is two years after the effective date of the Korea-EU FTA. The Copyright Act grants public performance rights to broadcasters, if admission fees are collected from the audience, for a broadcast performance in a publicly accessible place. Further, the Copyright Act sets forth the exemptions for fair use by online service providers as (i) mere conduit, (ii) caching, (iii) hosting and (iv) information search. Finally, the Copyright Act clarifies the definition of technical protection measures to the effect of encompassing the access-control technical protection measures and enumerates the grounds for the exceptions to the prohibition against circumvention of technical protection measures. 5. Customs Act: To Expand the Scope of Border Protection The amended Customs Act expands the scope of border protection to prohibit the importation or exportation of goods, which infringe the protected GI under a treaty or agreement, patent registration, or design registration, in addition to trademarks and copyrights. While the customs protection for GIs went into effect from July 1, 2011, the protection for patents and designs will go into effect two years after on July 1, Protection under the Act on Investigation of Unfair International Trade Practices and Remedy against Injury to Industry On a separate note, the Act on Investigation of Unfair International Trade Practices and Remedy against Injury to Industry regulates (i) the distribution, importation or sale of imported infringing goods, and (ii) the exportation or manufacture of goods for exportation that infringe GIs protected under treaties or agreements, as an infringing activity, and such activities are subject to legal remedy before the Korea Trade Commission ( KTC ). Thus, as of July 1, 2011, it is possible to seek legal remedy based on the GIs protected under the Korea-EU FTA before the KTC. 8 IP Newsletter

9 THIRD PARTY CAN REQUEST EXPEDITED EXAMINATION OF TRADEMARK APPLICATIONS By Jason J. LEE The Korean Intellectual Property Office recently amended its regulation regarding the Request for Expedited Examination of Trademark Applications, which became effective as of July 1, Previously, it was only possible for the applicant to request an expedited examination for trademark applications based on the grounds (i) where the applicant is using or has concrete plans to use the mark in connection with all of the designated goods/services under the pending application, or (ii) where a third party is using an identical or similar mark in connection with the identical or similar goods without any justifiable reason, and the applicant sent a warning letter to the third party against such use. A successful petitioner of a non-use cancellation action can also request an expedited examination for the trademark application filed within the 6 month priority period given to the successful petitioner. If expedited examination is requested, the applicant can obtain a trademark registration within 6 months from the filing date, whereas it generally takes approximately one year to obtain a trademark registration without such a request. Now, under the amended regulation, in addition to the applicant, a third party can also request expedited examination of trademark applications when the third party received a warning letter from the applicant for his/ her use of an identical or similar mark in connection with the identical or similar goods to a pending trademark application. The reason behind the amendment is to provide the third party with a chance to resolve trademark disputes in cases where it received a warning letter from the trademark applicant. COURT INDICATES TERM OF COPYRIGHT PROTECTION IN ITS DECISION By Jason J. LEE Recently, the Seoul High Court (Case No. 2009Na60413; decided on May 25, 2011) held in a case involving a copyright dispute that [d]efendants shall not copy, distribute or transmit their copyrighted infringing program until December 31, The Court held that the term during which the Defendants have an obligation not to infringe the copyright is not infinite, but limited to the term of copyright protection which is regulated by law. Under the Computer Program Protection Act, which is now merged into the Copyright Act, the term of copyright protection lasts for 50 years from the date of publication of the program. In this case, the Plaintiff s program was registered and published around 2005, and thus, the term of protection was calculated to last until December 31, 2055 (starting from the year after publication: 2006). In past decisions, courts did not specify the term of copyright protection. Therefore, this decision has raised the issue of how it will affect other court decisions involving copyright and other intellectual property rights, which have a limited protection period. Fall

10 FIRM NEWS AWARDS & RANKINGS Top rankings for all 9 practice areas in Asialaw Profiles 2012 In the Asialaw Profiles 2012, a publication of Asia Law & Practice that is affiliated with Euromoney, Kim & Chang was ranked as the top firm in Korea in the following 9 practice areas: Intellectual Property, Banking & Finance, Corporate/ M&A, Construction & Real Estate, Dispute Resolution, IT, Telco & Media, Labour & Employment, Shipping Maritime & Aviation and Tax. Kim & Chang is the only law firm in Korea with a top ranking in all surveyed areas. The World s Leading Patent & Technology Licensing Lawyers IAM Licensing /2012 Kim & Chang has been recognized in the 2011/2012 edition of IAM Licensing 250: The World s Leading Patent & Technology Licensing Lawyers. Three Kim & Chang Professionals Kenneth K. Cho, Chun Y. Yang, and Peter K. Paik were listed among the recommended individuals in Korea. Intellectual Asset Management (IAM) compiles its rankings by conducting in-depth interviews with attorneys at law and patent attorneys in 25 major jurisdictions. EVENTS IPO Annual Meeting in Los Angeles, September 11-13, 2011 Dave B. Koo, a US attorney of our firm s IP Group, participated as a speaker at the CLE conference entitled Compulsory Licensing as an Emerging Global IP Issue, which took place the day after the 2011 IPO Annual Meeting in Los Angeles. During the Compulsory Licensing in Asia session, Mr. Koo presented on the topic of Compulsory Licensing in Korea. Jeongdong Building, 17F, Jeongdong-gil, Jung-gu, Seoul , Korea Tel: Fax: all@ip.kimchang.com The KIM & CHANG IP Newsletter is provided for general informational purposes only and should not be considered a legal opinion of Kim & Chang nor relied upon in lieu of specific advice. c