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In order to strengthen the international protection of industrial designs and harmonize the procedures for an application, the Hague Agreement concerning the international deposit of industrial desig...
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In order to strengthen the international protection of industrial designs and harmonize the procedures for an application, the Hague Agreement concerning the international deposit of industrial designs ("the old Hague Agreement") was established in 1925, which has played the role of international norms in the area of industrial designs. On July 2, 1999, Geneva Act of the Hague Agreement concerning the international registration of industrial designs ("the new Hague Agreement") was born in Geneva to overcome the problems with the old Hague Agreement.
The new Hague Agreement gives an applicant the possibility of obtaining, by means of a single application in one language made with the International Bureau of WIPO, protection for his industrial designs in a large number of contracting States and does not require a mandatory representative.
If our country joins the new Hague Agreement, our nationals could file an international application under much more simplified procedure than that in the current application system where an applicant who seeks protection for his industrial designs in many countries has to submit an application with the office of each country according to the registration procedure of each country. The cost for protection in many countries would be reduced to 1/11 or 1/12 of the cost needed in the current application system. The number of applications filed by our nationals would rise up and there would be little negative effects on attorney business in the long term.
However, the domestic industrial business would have a lot of negative effects. While our design industry could obtain international competitive power in an early stage, the economic activity of the national industry would shrink because of the lower level of design industry. The accession to the Agreement could give more advantages to foreigners who seek protection for their industrial designs in Korea than to our nationals who want to have their industrial designs protected in foreign countries because the number of the applications that our nationals file with foreign offices is larger than the number of applications that foreigners file with our office as of 1997.
Therefore, it is desirable for Korea to join the new Hague Agreement after our design industry has international competitive power and main countries, where our country would like to expand exports by the entry of our industrial designs in those countries, participates in that Agreement. Since our design industry will get international competitive power in 5 years and the main trading countries such as the United States and Japan is expected to join the Agreement in 2 or 3 years, it would be appropriate for our country to accede to the Agreement 5 years later and prepare for the accession to the Agreement steadily at the aim of the participation in the Agreement 5 years later.
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