국제출원(PCT)의 보정범위와 무효에 관한 연구

The applicant in the international filing can amend claims according to Article 19 of the PCT Regulation after receiving the International Search Report, and can amend specification, claims and drawings according to Article 34 of the PCT Regulation during the international preliminary examination. The amendment according to Article 19 and Article 34 can be within the scope described in specification, claims and drawings filed on the international filing date. Although the amendment against the scope of amendment may not incur specific problem in the international phase, the opinion would be issued to give a change for the applicant to submit written argument and written amendment in the international preliminary examination. The translations of the original publication and written amendment are submitted in entry of national phase and the Examiner of the designated country will examine on the basis of the translations. If new matter would be added in the amendment of international phase, the examination is not performed to apply Article 19 or 34 of PCT Regulation, but performed to apply Article 204, Article 205, Article 208 and Para 2 of Article 47 of the Korean Patent Law. The Examiner would not examine on the basis of the original publication but examine on the basis of the translation. Although the original publication and the translation are not consistent, there is no responsibility to confirm whether or not the content which is not described in specification, claims and drawings submitted on the international filing date defined in PCT is added in the content of amendment. Accordingly the international application violating the range of the amendment can be allowed to be patented, and there has a problem in that the patent would be invalidated thereafter. For solving such a problem, it is needed to describe the provision obligatorily confirming the original publication and the translation to decide whether or not the new matter is added, in the Patent Law.