IPTAB Can Now Directly Issue Patent Grant Decisions for Invention/Design Patents

The Intellectual Property Trial and Appeal Board (IPTAB) under the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) has amended its procedures, allowing IPTAB judges to directly grant a decision on invention/design patent applications after a rejection if the applicant appeals the decision. This new rule enables IPTAB judges to overturn KIPO’s rejection decision without having to send the application back to KIPO for re-examination.

Under the previous procedure, if IPTAB overturned a rejection, the application for invention/design patents would be sent back to KIPO for re-examination. The new modification, effective from January 2025, allows the acceleration of the patent granting process in certain cases. Specifically, if there are no unresolved issues in the examination stage and no new rejection reasons are found, IPTAB judges can directly grant the patent without returning the case to KIPO. As a result, applicants for such cases can receive their invention/design patent grant one to two months earlier without waiting for re-examination.