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Today, I’d like to point out 'odd patent circles' in Korea.
There is a fight between ‘lawyers’ from bar exam and ‘patent attornies(or agents)’ from patent attorney exam.
Under the current law, Korean patent attornies can’t join the lawsuit, officially.
On the other hand, every lawyer can hold full qualification, which patent attornies have, without any additional effort. Even without any scientific and engineering background.
So, these groups have very ridiculous relationship. They beat each other up yesterday, and today they are cooperating in the court.
Especially, the dog-eat-dog among 2 groups for ‘job domain’ is growing fiercer.
Lawyers usually ignore KPAA(Korea Patent Attorney Association)’s policy, which regulate patent attornies to take the patent training by KPAA.
They want to take it through their own association(KBA·Korean Bar Association).
Commissioner of the KIPO(Korean Intellectual Property Office), Mr. Choi Donggu said that the one who get consumers' choice will be the final winner. He has no mind to arbitrate this situation.
The deputy Prime Minister, Mr. Choi Kyunghwan made a remark that patent attorney should join in lawsuit through the law revision in parliamentary inspection of the administration, on 6 October.
However, it might be actually impossible. National Assembly is currently under the strong control of lawyer group. The Bar is one of the most powerful clique in Korea, even if they have no global competitiveness.
I’m worried about 'Chaos' in Korean patent law market, after the liberalization of legal services for the KOR-US FTA in 2 years.
Yoo Kdong ｜[email protected]
