A patent/utility model application filed on or after July 01, 2011 must have prior art disclosure in the 
specifications, i.e. the specifications must have descriptions of any prior art or information about  
documents which disclose the prior art.  The description of the prior art should be directly related to 
the invention described in the claim. 

The examiner will issue an office action rejecting the application if there is no description of the prior 
art in the specifications or there is little connection between the described prior art and the claimed 
invention. In order to overcome a rejection regarding a lack of prior art description, the applicant may 
add to the specifications information about prior art documents which disclose the relevant prior art. 
However, it will be considered as a new matter if any kind of written description regarding a prior art 
is added to the specifications. 

This prior art description requirement in the Korean Patent Act is distinguishable from the IDS in USPTO 
in that once the prior art is described in the original specifications, it is not required to disclose 
additional prior arts whenever the applicant recognizes another prior art document. In addition, it is 
distinguishable from the duty of disclosing prior art information in Japan in that it can meet the 
requirement by describing  the prior art without disclosing information about any relevant documents.