1. Initiative of high bandwidth memory (HBM) is kept by strengthening patent competitiveness.
- KIPO held an on-site communication meeting with SK Hynix (October 24, 2024).
According to KIPO, an on-site communication meeting was held in the Icheon business site (Icheon-si, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea) of SK Hynix, to strengthen IP competitiveness in the semiconductor industry.
This meeting was arranged to listen to the IP-related matters in the semiconductor industrial site by visiting SK Hynix leading the HBM technology which is a new item in the semiconductor memory market.
KIPO and SK Hynix share the industrial trends and IP trends in the HBM field and discussed the current technological and IP-related issues and the industrial on-site difficulties.
The director of the semiconductor examination bureau of KIPO said, “as the AI market has grown explosively, the HBM market to support the computation of AI accelerators has also sharply grown and accordingly the business to business market share and the competition to secure leading technology are also expected to intensify…through close communication with the industry, KIPO will do the best for Korea companies to secure competitive patents in the memory field.”
2. An IP education is conducted for Korean and Japanese companies mutually entering each country.
- KIPO and JETRO held an ‘IP education course for Korean and Japanese companies mutually entering each country’.
International Intellectual Property Training Institute (IIPTI) under KIPO and Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) performed an online ‘IP education course for Korean and Japanese companies mutually entering (or will enter) each country’ (hereinafter, referred to as the ‘Korea-Japan education’) on October 25 for Japanese comapnies and will perform it on November 27 for Korea companies.
This education course is an education operated in a mutually beneficial manner with the countries where Korean companies have advanced, to enhance intellectual property capabilities of export companies expanding overseas. The education for Korean companies advanced overseas is performed in an IP-related organization of the country where Korean companies advanced, and the education for an overseas company advanced in Korea is conducted in IIPTI of KIPO.
For this Korea-Japan education, the education for Japanese companies was performed from 2:30 pm on October 25, 2024, and the education for Korean companies will be online performed from 2:00 pm on November 27. The education includes the subjects of ▲overview of IP rights, ▲ trends of Korean and Japanese IP systems, and▲ IP utilization, infringement and violation cases, etc.
Any companies that have entered (or will enter) in Korea or Japan can apply and participate in the education. Applying for education for Japanese companies was available at the website of JETRO by the date for education (October 25th), and the participants of the education for Korean companies will be separately recruited through IP-DESK. The participants will take online real-time classes through a ZOOM link.
Since this education course was first operated with China Intellectual Property Training Center (CIPTC) in 2018, the education cooperation has been expanded to the Philippines in 2023 and to Japan in 2024. Korea-China education was performed in August, 2024 and Korea-Philippines education will be held in November this year.
KIPO expects that, through this education course, Korean export companies are able to be fully aware of the laws and systems of the countries where they are entering, to minimize illegal acts and to prevent damages due to IP infringement, etc. and foreign companies entering Korea are able to comply with Korean laws and systems, to carry out successful corporate activities.
3. KIPO and Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) proceeded with a special crackdown, ‘Fake out, genuine OK’, relating to a fall season baseball.
- KIPO conducted a special crackdown to eradicate counterfeit items during the KBO Korean series.
According to KIPO’s trademark special judicial police (hereinafter, referred to as a ‘trademark police’), they intensively cracked down the distribution and sale of baseball-related counterfeit items around the stadium during the period of ‘2024 KBO Korean series’ (October 21~29, 2024).
The number of spectators of professional baseball exceeded 10,880,000 as of the 2024 KBO regular season with the highest record in KBO history is being broken. In addition to this high popularity, sales of counterfeit items, such as baseball equipment and fan merchandises (goods), have been also increasing. Based on the KBO’s own statistics, the number of cases infringing trademark rights of KBO and each club was 1,110 as of the end of 2023 and it was 1,308 as of the end of September this year, exceeding the last year’s number of infringements.
The trademark police, which had received from KBO a request for monitoring and controlling the baseball-related counterfeit items in September, 2024, conducted a special crackdown on the sale of counterfeit items, such as baseball supplies and goods, near the stadium during the Korean series period. This crackdown was to detect in advance merchants trying to sell counterfeit items taking the Korean series as an opportunity and to prevent baseball fans from being damaged due to the purchases of the counterfeit items. The trademark police conducted the intensive crackdown focusing on the areas where acts of distributing and selling counterfeit items may occur, near the baseball stadium and baseball equipment stores, and it also planned to take strong legal actions as to violations detected on site.
In this crackdown, public relations activities (campaigns) were also performed to improve baseball fans’ perception of IP rights as well as the strict enforcement of the law against the sale of counterfeit items. The campaigns were to promote authentic purchases inside and outside the stadium and to prevent damages due to the purchases of counterfeit items.
4. KIPO explained the patent examination guide enactment plan in the digital health care field and listened to on-site opinions thereon.
KIPO held an on-site communication meeting with the industry, academia and research institute officials in the digital healthcare field.
This meeting was prepared to share a practical examination guide enactment proposal of the ‘digital healthcare technology’ which has been growing rapidly recently and to listen to on-site opinions.
The number of Korean applications related to digital healthcare rapidly increased from 2,785 in 2015 to 7,141 in 2023, and the global market scale is expected to grow from $174 billion in 2019 to $657 billion in 2025.
The digital healthcare technology includes the feature of converging technology that digital engineering and pharmaceutical technology are combined. Notably, with the advent of information technology (IT), new technologies have emerged and developed rapidly. Accordingly, the enactment of new practical examination guide has been required in the digital healthcare area.
KIPO prepared a practical examination guide enactment proposal focusing on specific cases by listening, in advance, to the relevant industry’s opinions and analyzing a practical examination guide in the adjacent fields, such as computers, the overseas examination cases and the Patent Court’s precedents, etc.
Due to the nature of the healthcare industry, there have been many opinions that effectiveness is important when determining patent requirements and it is difficult to making a patent application or setting the scope of right, etc. A new practical examination guide will be made focusing on cases by reflecting the healthcare industry’s opinions and the on-site opinions collected in the meeting.
5. An era of 10 trillion Korea Won in IP finance has opened.
- KIPO announced the achievement of IP financial scale of 10 trillion Korea Won.
- KIPO plans to promote the policies of creating a joint fund to expand the IP finance, advancing the IP financial valuation and preventing insolvency of companies using IP financial collateral loans, etc.
On October 16, 2024, KIPO published that the IP financial scale exceeded 10 trillion Korea Won (as of the end of August, 2024). More than 10 trillion Korea Won in funds has been supplied to innovative companies having excellent IP.
According to KIPO, the balance of IP finance, which raises money through mortgage loan, guarantee and investment by using IP, such as patents held by companies, reached 10.211 trillion Korea Won. The scale grew from 6.09 trillion Korea Won in 2021 by about 1.7 times in 3 years.
Notably, considering that 84.2% of companies using the IP mortgage loans were non-blue chip companies whose credit rating was not high (below BB+ grade), it has a great significance of playing an important role in providing funds to low-credit companies with excellent technology.
KIPO laid the foundation for an innovative system by expanding the IP mortgage loans from government-run banks to commercial and local banks and introducing a ‘program to support collateral IP’ to reduce the bank’s collateral IP recovery risk. KIPO has also served as a facilitator for IP investment by supporting the IP valuation costs that companies must go through in order to use IP finance and injecting a government budget (fund of funds: patent account) to create an IP fund.
In addition, KIPO has made efforts in various directions to spread the IP finance by closely cooperating with banks, guarantee agencies and investment agencies through a council of IP investment agencies, a council of collateral IP recovery support agencies, etc. and jointly hosting an IP financial forum with the Financial Services Commission (a total of 5 times since 2019) to lay the foundation for policy discussion.
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