Hot Issues

Business model ¡°Cyber Tokdo Island¡± granted patent

One of the Korean banks, that is, Daegu bank has been granted a patent for a business model ¡°Cyber Tokdo Island branch¡± constructed in cyber space.
Daegu Bank announced that the patent for the cyber Tokdo Island branch, which is designed to raise citizen¡¯s attention to the island and to also operate a business, has been finally granted.
The patent registration guarantees the bank rights for the next 20 years.
The ¡°Cyber Tokdo Island branch¡±, when it was opened on the 15th of August, 2001, attracted national attention by triggering disputes between netizens of Korea and Japan, and Japan¡¯s Tokyo newspapers published feature stories thereon. As a result, this branch became the profit making branch of the bank.
At present, the number of customers of the cyber branch is somewhere around 78,700 persons. The savings account amounts to 64 billion Korean Won, and the loans amount to 14.9 billion Korean Won.

(the Korea Economic Daily 04/17/2003)

New time limit for entering into the Korean national phase of a PCT application

Under the revised Korean Patent Act, the time limit to submit a Korean translation for entering into the Korean national phase of a PCT application has been extended to 30 months from the priority date regardless of whether or not an international preliminary examination was demanded.

The new time limit is effective from March 12, 2003, and accordingly applies to a PCT application of which the priority date is on or after July 12, 2001. However, the new time limit does not apply to a PCT application of which the time limit for the national phase will expire on March 11, 2003.