Korea Intellectual Property Office unveils R&D-patent plan to counter tech rivalry

The Korea Intellectual Property Office said Wednesday that it and the science ministry won approval for a plan to tie together research and development, patents and technology trading as global competition over core technologies intensifies.

The measure, drawn up with the Ministry of Science and ICT, was passed at the 13th meeting of science and technology ministers. It sets out three strategies: embedding patent strategy inside state R&D, securing and making better use of high-value overseas and standard patents, and building an ecosystem that turns public research into business.

International patent filings in national strategic technology fields rose from 61,560 in 2014 to 178,791 in 2023, the office said. Support for patent-linked R&D amounted to about 3.2 percent of all applied and development R&D in 2024, up from 2.2 percent in 2021 and 2.8 percent in 2023. Of 44,079 patents produced by state R&D in 2024, 38,444, or 87 percent, were filed in Korea.

Universities and public research institutes earned 278 billion won ($205 million) in royalties last year against 19.2 trillion won ($14.1 billion) in research spending, a ratio of about 1.5 percent.

Starting in the second half of this year, the government will build a national patent strategy map for the physical AI sector and extend it step by step to other strategic technology fields. It will also develop an "AI-IP solution" that processes patent information into data for training artificial intelligence, to offer optimal research design, virtual experiments and patent acquisition strategies, beginning with batteries, semiconductors and advanced biotechnology.

For technologies that need to be claimed abroad, the plan supports rights design, entry into key markets and strengthening of patent claims so they can be secured as core "international K-IP." In fields such as AI and humanoid robots, it will build K-patent pools that draw on domestic patents, and will pursue standard patent strategies from the research stage.

The plan also takes aim at patents held by universities and public research institutes. Promising patents will be screened and connected to demonstration, refinement and technology trading, while patents on innovation with future value will be kept strategically. Common standards will be set for the work of technology licensing offices, with support tailored to each office's capacity and stage of growth.

An IP-TLO alliance launched in April, now 60 licensing offices strong, will share cases of overseas filing, startups and international licensing. Training for universities, companies and research institutes will be expanded so that researchers and staff can use patent strategy in their work.

"For national R&D results to be competitive in the global market, patent strategy has to move together from the start of research," said Kim Yong-sun, head of the Korea Intellectual Property Office. "We will support outstanding research results in being secured as overseas original and standard patents and in leading to commercialization in the global market, and we will also actively back the leap to an AI powerhouse by building the national patent strategy map for physical AI and supporting the securing of an edge in international supply chains."