1. Reason for Revision

Due to the rapid development of information technology and the diversification of industries, the Patent Attorney Act has been revised (Implemented on July 28, 2016) so that the essential conditions for obtaining patent attorneys include the completion of intern training prescribed by the Presidential Decree; however, although insincere trainees were continuously found in patent attorney training, adequate sanctions were not provided; as a result, the need to revise the corresponding provisions was raised to improve the effectiveness of the training. Therefore, this proposed revision is intended to improve the effectiveness of collective training and to achieve the complete purpose of legislation in order to supply law consumers with qualified patent attorney services by establishing the legal basis for non-face-to-face training (e-learning), performance evaluation, and reason for disapproval of intern training completion as part of collective training for intern training within the Enforcement Rules of the Patent Attorney Act.

2. Main contents

A. Correction and detailing of the reason for disapproval of intern training completion (Article 2 (6) of the draft)

- Deletion and correction of unnecessary expressions in sentences in the range not to deteriorate the intentions of provisions (Article 2 (6) Text of the draft)

- Correction of terms and expressions used in the provisions because the current provisions were difficult to restrict improper training activities due to the possibility of ambiguous interpretation (Article 2 (6) 1 of the draft)

- As the legislative purpose of the corresponding provisions is to restrict the insufficient completion of intern training rather than the insufficient contents of intern training, the contents of provisions have been corrected and the restrictions detailed (Article 2 (6) 2 of the draft).

B. Establishment of the basis to implement “e-learning” (Article 2 (7) of the draft)

- Establishment of the grounds for operating “e-learning” for a part or the whole of the training to ensure the efficient operation of collective training.

C. Establishment of the basis for conducting “performance evaluations” of the collective training (Article 2 (8) of the draft).

- Establishment of the legal basis for “performance evaluation” that has been internally conducted to improve the effectiveness of collective training.

D. Correction of the range for delegation to subordinate statutes (Article 2 (9) of the draft)

- The range of delegation subordinate statutes has been corrected to “from Article 2 (1) to 2 (8)” due to the establishment of Article 2 (7) and Article 2 (8) with revision of Article 2.