Hot Issues

Cigarette enabling smokers to stop smoking developed

A functional cigarette for stopping smoking without causing any damage to the human body while retaining the same taste and smell has been developed by a Korean company and will be released into the market this coming August.

Eastern Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. (http://easternpharm.koreasme.com) announced on 1 May 2003 that they have succeeded in developing a cigarette to help smokers quit smoking ("NONOCIGA") by adding an antismoking substance (WWP-15) while removing 44 carcinogenic substances such as nicotine and tar included in cigarettes. The company invested 25 billion Won to develop the NONOCIGA and obtained a U.S. patent for the antismoking substance.

According to nicotine reduction tests by the company, after smoking the NONOCIGA for one week, the amount of nicotine in the body of a smoker is reduced by 23%. No nicotine was found in the smoker's body after four weeks. "The results show that the desire to smoke has been completely restricted by the antismoking substance," said a source in the company. The company added that the U.S. ATF analyzed the contents of the NONOCIGA and confirmed that no carcinogenic substances such as nicotine and tar were found.

Korea's Patent Numbering System Becomes Global Standard

South Korea's patent numbering system has been adopted as global standard.
The Korea Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) said the Standing Committee on Information Technologies (SCIT) of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) adopted the country's patent numbering system as its standard at a recent Standards and Documentation Working Group meeting held in Geneva, Switzerland.
The adoption of the KIPO's standard means the maximum number of digits of the international patent numbering system will increase from current 10 to 13.
KIPO's patent numbering system consists of a two-digit patent-type identifier, a four-digit year of patent application number and a seven-digit serial number, for example 10/2003/1234567.
It will be used to identify applications, published documents and registered rights by industrial property offices around the globe.
The first two digits classify whether the patent is for an invention, a utility model, an industrial design, a topography of an integrated circuit or a trademark.
The global standard was previously a 10-digit number consisting of a four-digit year code and a six-digit serial number, for example 2002-123456.
With the adoption of the KIPO proposal to revise the WIPO standard regarding international commercial brand numbering system for documentation, South Korea has been designated as the task leader to revise the international standard.
KIPO, together with WIPO working group member countries, will survey commercial brand numbering systems of all member countries by the end of September next year and draw up a standard revision draft for uniform numbering of international brands to be used for electronic document processing. The draft plan will be tendered to the Standards and Documentation Working Group meeting in December 2003.
`WIPO's adoption of South Korea's patent numbering system as an international standard and the designation of the country as task leader for revising WIPO standard for commercial brand numbering system reflects that the world is positively evaluating KIPO's drive to computerization and standardization of all intellectual property related administrative process across the world.