Lee & Ko’s regional United States and Europe teams represent clients with major business operations in the United States and Europe who wish to go through the process of filing, examination, and registration of its IP at the KIPO in Korea. Lee & Ko IP also provides services for Korean clients who wish to file and register their IP in the United States or Europe with counseling customized for each country while working with our global network of IP firms. In addition, Lee & Ko represents Korean or International clients in IP disputes.

Many of Lee & Ko’s professionals have undergraduate or advanced degrees in technical and industrial fields and have worked as KIPO examiners, IPTAB administrative judges, and Patent Court judges. Our United States and Europe teams are able to secure strong IP rights for our clients at the filing and registration stage based on the team’s ability to leverage our extensive litigation experience. Moreover, our team is recognized for superior services in helping our clients protect their intellectual property rights across the whole spectrum of business ranging from IP commercialization to dispute resolution.

More than 40% of Lee & Ko's IP professionals hold a technical or law degree from abroad, have practiced IP law in law firms overseas, or are licensed as foreign attorneys/patent attorneys, and able to provide top-notch client service at a global level. In addition, the team includes former in-house counsels and corporate leaders who have worked in multiple global companies adding to Lee & Ko’s United States and Europe team’s expertise.

Lee & Ko’s United States and Europe teams currently represent leading multinational companies in Korea and abroad and we maintain a wide network of business relationships with local firms in each country to meet the global needs of our clients.

Expertise

Prosecution

Lee & Ko’s IP Practice Group provides a variety of services for our US or European clients who wish to file and register patents, utility models, designs, and trademarks in Korea – from translating specifications to responding to office actions from the KIPO. To ensure that our foreign clients do not face any difficulties due to language barriers and different practices, our related experts provide timely appropriate guidance of procedures, substantive issues and updates through active communication with our clients.

For Korean clients who wish to file and register their IP in the US or Europe, Lee & Ko provides top quality service through our US patent attorneys and Korean patent attorneys experienced in overseas practice who work in cooperation to prepare the overseas specification and other relevant documents in accordance with local practice. Lee & Ko also partners with local agents to respond to local office actions.

Lee & Ko also assists our clients with IPR transfers and license registrations that are oftentimes required in transactions between global companies or in M&A transactions.

Handle IP disputes

We represent our foreign clients in IPTAB trials and Patent Court litigations in Korea, while obtaining the best results for our Korean clients in IP disputes in US or Europe by closely cooperating with local counsel. We also provide appraisal services with respect to invalidation or infringement in order to prepare or respond to an IPTAB trial or IP litigation.

Research

At the request of our clients, we carry out research of prior art documents and prior patents that are disclosed in various languages in order to assist our clients in reducing risk before a patent invalidation action or a product launch. We also provide IP related consultations for clients, such as establishing a patent portfolio, analyzing trends in the client’s technical field or competitors’ patent activities.