KIPO Launches 'Product-Interpretation Search' Service

For the convenience of trademark patent applicants, KIPO(Korean Intellectual Property Office) launched a product-interpretation service, starting February 14. In the past, applicants experienced a lot of difficulties in designating products when filing trademark applications due to the emergence of new products following industrial development and the lack of unified product names.

When trademark examiners or trial judges wanted to understand the exact usage and functions of certain products, they also had difficulty as they had to find certain products one after the other through the Internet or encyclopedia.

In order to ease such difficulties, KIPO has enabled applicants to search interpretations of about 5,000 products via the Internet, except for widely known goods, out of some 7,070 product items listed in the enforcement regulations of the Trademark Act. KIPO's newly-launched service also provides photos in addition to interpretations of product usages and functions so that anyone can easily understand them.

Without stopping here with the present product interpretation service, KIPO plans to provide 'service business interpretation and also to publish interpretation leaflets for goods and services, whose patent applications have been thus far filed or those that are newly emerging in the market but not included in the list of the Trademark Act's enforcement regulations. The service is carrying product names also in English as part of efforts to cope with the international trends of trademark applications.

Those who want to receive this service, please visit KIPO's home page (www.kipo.go.kr), click 'Information Search Section' and then input product names desired.

Korean researchers succeeded in developing material for preventing spread of SARS virus

A substance for prevent the spread of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) virus, which had once dealt a fatal blow to South East Asia and China, has been developed by Korean researchers.
Professor Suh Man-cheol, Korea Polytechnic University, and Kwon Doo-han, senior researcher, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience & Bio Technology (KRIBB) announced on December 3 that they have succeeded in developing a substance which can control the spread of the Transmissible GastroEnteritis Virus (TGEV), a kind of SARS virus (Corona virus), up to 55% after their research for more than three years.
The substance developed by the research team led by professor Suh is obtained by extracting thyme and cinnamon through vapor extraction and diluting in a dissolvent at a proportion of 1 to 100,000. The substance is more effective that the ginger root (50% effect) extracts developed by a research team at Tokyo University.
In addition, the substance found to be effective in killing or controlling various germs including flu viruses, staphylococci, colitis germs as well as SARS viruses.

This new material is used in fuel tanks for vehicles, food/cosmetics containers, etc., which is the latest engineering plastic preventing exposure of contained materials such as solvent, moisture, gas, etc. LG Chemical Ltd. revealed that "Hyperier has high barrier ability which is capable of making a single layer mold, and thus cost for investment on expensive molding process devices and purchase of raw materials can be drastically reduced, which is expected to greatly contribute in uplifting cost competitiveness of the processing industries".

LG Chemical Ltd. has focused on research & development since 2001 at the LG Chemical Tech Center in order to develop this new material, and is planning to introduce barrier cosmetics containers by the early half of this year. Also, LG revealed that in order to apply the new material to fuel tanks for vehicles, LG is currently conducting research & development jointly with domestic/foreign auto makers.

SK Telecom explained that H.264 and MPEG4 HE AAC technology are moving picture technologies of the next generation which can enhance the compression rate by more than 50% of that of the existing technology, and that this is the first time for it to be practically used in the world.

Since last 1997, standardization matters have been discussed at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), etc. SK Telecom has begun full-scale development from last 2001, and made it practically used through a final test in three years.

In particular, with the advent of this moving picture compression technology, the company's multimedia services such as 'JUNE' are showing increased screen quality, and reduced time for download. It is expected to act as an amplifier for activating services by providing video on demand (VOD), music on demand (MOD), etc. for a 30% price.

For example, when watching a one and a half minute long music video, it could only be compressed to 1.4 MB using the existing compression method. However, by using this technology, it can be compressed to even 0.98 MB so as to enable it to receive various other contents.

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