Poor Management of Patent Attorney Examination

There are many things missing in a patent attorney examination and so examinees have filed administrative litigations and constitutional petition.

The examination supervisor, Korea Intellectual Property Office(KIPO) suddenly changed a selection method of successful applicants and modified questions during examination. Experts criticized such poor management of the national qualification exam management.

A law firm, Jeongil said on November 8, “We brought lawsuits on a cancellation of the exam failure to Seoul Administrative Court, on behalf of three unsuccessful applicants who suffered such poor management of KIPO on October 22.”

Jeongil brought constitutional petition on behalf of 201 applicants owing to an infringement of a career selection right in the beginning of August. The Constitutional Court of Korea rejected the petition as a claim period already past. However, it indicated a fault of KIPO through ‘supplementary the constitutional fundamental right such an individual career selection right for the administrative convenience. The claiming period already past but we have to stop repeating the same typed infringement actions for a maintenance of constitutional orders.”

The repercussion was started as KIPO changed the selection of successful applicants from ‘absolute evaluation’ to ‘relative evaluation’ on January 17, 4 months before the first exam. KIPO changed an Enforcement Ordinance of Patent Attorney Law in June, 2000 and modified into the absolute evaluation system. On January 9, KIPO announced that applicants would take the first examination with the absolute evaluation system of March 31.

KIPO explained, “The number of successful applicants for the second exam is limited. If the examine is based on the absolute evaluation system, the successful applicants of the first exam will be very large. So we decided to change it because the exam management is in fact not possible”.

However, Seol Gyeong-Gu, lawyer said “According to the announcement of KIPO in June 2000, there are the large number of exam applicants. Because KIPO adjusted the preparation period for the exam based on the 2nd exam and suddenly changed it, there are many applicants suffered”.

Besides, in the 2nd examination in August, one question of ‘circuit theory’, one of the optional subjects didn’t have a mark. So, it was modified 30 minutes after the exam time started. At that time, applicants wanted to postpone the exam time, but their request was not accepted. Also, owing to a power failure of a copy room, the exam hour was delayed for one hour. The official of KIPO said, “Because of a problem on equilibrium, we talked about the hour postponement with committee members, but it was rejected. So we established the exam as scheduled.”

Ja-Ryong Koo bonhong@donga.com