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| Prior Art Disclosure Requirement in Korea (effective as of July 01, 2011) |
A patent/utility model application filed on or after July 01, 2011 must have prior art disclosure in the
specifications, i.e. the specifications must have descriptions of any prior art or information about
documents which disclose the prior art. The description of the prior art should be directly related to
the invention described in the claim.
The examiner will issue an office action rejecting the application if there is no description of the prior
art in the specifications or there is little connection between the described prior art and the claimed
invention. In order to overcome a rejection regarding a lack of prior art description, the applicant may
add to the specifications information about prior art documents which disclose the relevant prior art.
However, it will be considered as a new matter if any kind of written description regarding a prior art
is added to the specifications.
This prior art description requirement in the Korean Patent Act is distinguishable from the IDS in USPTO
in that once the prior art is described in the original specifications, it is not required to disclose
additional prior arts whenever the applicant recognizes another prior art document. In addition, it is
distinguishable from the duty of disclosing prior art information in Japan in that it can meet the
requirement by describing the prior art without disclosing information about any relevant documents.
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