특허출원 공개시기 단축방안 ―현행 18개월 출원공개제도를 16개월 또는 14개월 제도로 변경―

Article 64 of the Korea Patent Act (2021) prescribes the so-called eighteen (18) month publication system, under which a patent application is being laid open eighteen month after the filing date or the priority date. The eighteen month system was settled by considering (1) the priority period (12 months) required by the Paris Covention, (2) the period to alter priority claim (4 months) or the period to file priority certification document (4 months) and (3) publication preparation period (2 months). Based on the fact that the eighteen month period is too long in the current high speed technology development era and that the sooner the publication is, the more beneficial for technology development, this paper researched a method to shorten the current eighteen month period to sixteen or even fourteen month period. This research has made the following results. Firstly, because patent administration in the Korean Intellectual Property Office has been almost 100% automated, publication preparation period need to be only one day. Therefore sixteen month publication is easily possible. Secondly, there is no inevitable reason why alteration of priority claim or filing of priority certification document shall be submitted before publication. In other words, as a claim can be amended after publication, a priority claim can be amended after publication. Because anyone can inspect the file wrapper, the amended content is deemed publicly noticed real time. In that respect, without waiting all sixteen months, we can operate a so-called fourteen month system. Because of the period of fourteen months to submit claim(s) and translated document, it is not possible to further shorten the fourteen months. This paper proclaims that for a faster-paced technology development, we shall introduce a sixteen month publication system or even preferably a fourteen month publication system.