According to the Announcement No. 196 of the China National Intellectual Property Administration, it has opened the electronic exchange service of bilateral priority documents between China and South Korea on January 1, 2014. Due to the South Korean priority business migration and integration plan, the bilateral exchange channels involved in the Announcement will stop obtaining the counterparty's electronic priority document service from January 1, 2021.

In order to continue to provide electronic priority services for applicants from China and South Korea, CNIPA and KIPO have agreed to switch the electronic exchange of priority documents between China and South Korea to the WIPO DAS platform. That is, for applications with an application date after January 1, 2021 (inclusive), if the applicant wishes to obtain an electronic priority document issued by CNIPA or KIPO, the applicant shall perform deposit and inquiry in accordance with the requirements of WIPO DAS formalities.

The WIPO Digital Access Service (DAS) is an electronic system allowing priority documents and similar documents to be securely exchanged between participating intellectual property (IP) offices. The system enables applicants and offices to meet the requirements of the Paris Convention for certification in an electronic environment.

The Service is intended for use with documents related to patents, utility models, industrial designs and trademarks.

Background

Traditionally, applicants have been obliged to request certified paper copies of documents from one office and then submit those documents to other offices.

WIPO DAS allows applicants to simply request the first office (known as the Depositing Office or Office of First Filing) to make priority documents available to the System and then to request other offices (known as the Accessing Offices or Offices of Second Filing) to retrieve those documents via the Service. The exchange of documents then takes place electronically between the offices.

(Source: WIPO)