KIPO Extends Office Action Response Period and Opens Deferred Examination to Divisional Applications

Effective July 11, 2025, the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) introduced two notable procedural changes to patent and utility model practice: an extended response period for office actions and expanded eligibility for deferred examination and decision deferral. These updates are aimed at easing administrative burdens and giving applicants greater control over managing examination timelines. ▒  Extended Response Period: From Two to Four Months The default response period for office actions has been increased from two months to four months. Previously, applicants had to rely on monthly extension requests to match the initial response windows available in other jurisdictions:  ● United States and Japan: 3 months  ● Europe and China: 4 months With this change, Korea’s default response period now better aligns with international practice. The extension system remains unchanged: as before, applicants may request up to four additional months in one-month increments, allowing for a total response period of up to eight months. Applicants seeking quicker progress can still file early responses along with a request to shorten the designated response period—an option that may be useful in enforcement or parallel filing scenarios. ▒  Deferred Examination and Decision Deferral Now Available for Divisional Applications KIPO’s deferred examination system allows applicants to postpone substantive examination for strategic or commercial reasons. Under this system:  ● Examination may be delayed for up to two years after the request for examination is filed.  ● Examination must begin within five years of the application’s filing date.  ● The request to defer examination must be submitted within nine months of the request for examination. Separately, applicants may also request decision deferral, which allows KIPO to withhold the final decision on patentability for up to 12 months from the application’s filing date, provided the request is made within six months of filing. Importantly, examination—including office action issuance—can still proceed during the deferral period. Until now, divisional applications were excluded from both deferred examination and decision deferral. The July 2025 amendment removes that restriction, allowing divisional applications to benefit from both mechanisms on the same terms as original applications. These changes—particularly the expansion of deferred examination—will benefit applicants managing families of related applications, especially in industries with long development timelines, such as pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and advanced communications, where examination timing is often coordinated with commercialization or regulatory schedules.