On July 14, the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) Commissioner Kim Young-min announced that the project to construct KIPONET III, which will ease development, operation and maintenance of system now that it is finished. An opportunity to take part in the development of the KIPOnet system is also opened to small and medium-sized businesses.By the three-Year plan construction project, KIPO is first among government organizations to change its entire information system to a standard frame work of electronic Government. KIPO expected that the construction of KIPONET III is going to expand the accessibility throughout the system fundamental technology and allow easier operation and maintenance of the system by unifying computer languages into a single program (Java). Besides, the dependency on specific technology, which made it difficult for small and medium-sized businesses to take part in the project to construct and develop the patent information system, is also reduced. It will allow small and medium-sized software companies to take part in the patent administration information project more actively. The KIPOnet system development project has been led by major companies, such as LG CNS and Samsung SDS, since 1999, the opening of KIPOnet. Small and medium-sized businesses have partially attended the project through a consortium or subcontract.“We will keep trying to consider various supporting plans to make small and medium-sized software companies be able to take part in the patent information system development project more easily,” said Byeon Hunseok, the president of the Information Policy Bureau. Date July 15, 2013 From The Electronic Times