To Prepare for 4th Industrial Revolution
Intellectual Property 5 (IP5), which consists of the national patent offices of the United States, South Korea, Japan, China and Europe, agreed to work together on a better international patent system in preparation for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The heads of the patent offices had their 12th meeting at the Sheraton Grand Incheon Hotel on June 13 and adopted a joint statement to that end.
The statement contains how to coordinate their examination standards related to artificial intelligence (AI) patents and how to use AI and new technologies in patent administration. The offices are going to launch a task force based on the joint statement in this regard.
The task force, which is expected to be organized by the offices’ patent system experts and information technology experts, will be in operation for two years to establish a road map for their cooperation with regard to the objectives. Established in 2007, IP5 has made efforts so that international patents can be obtained with ease and speed based on coordinated systems.
At the 12th meeting, the heads of the offices reached an agreement on simplified prior art submission, which has been demanded for long by industries. Applicants are expected to be able to obtain U.S. patents with greater ease.
Also, the offices reflected an improved Industry 4.0 patent classification scheme in the International Patent Classification (IPC) in view of the current trends of technological innovation. The new scheme is expected to make patent examination more efficient and patent information and data more accessible.