On October 29, 2020, the Korean Intellectual Property Office issued the "Intellectual Property Transaction Promotion Measures". In the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, learning foreign advanced technologies and the integration of different technologies accelerated the development of innovation, thus further reflecting the importance of intellectual property transactions.
The Korean Intellectual Property Office pointed out that 70% of the current R&D budget of the Korean government is allocated to Korean universities and public research institutions, but its technology transaction scale is less than 6% of that of American universities. According to statistics from the Korean Ministry of Industry and Technology, the scale of technology transactions between Korean universities and public research institutions in 2018 was 189.7 billion won, and that of the United States was 3.200 billion won.
In order to revitalize the intellectual property trading market and improve the intellectual property trading environment, the Korean Intellectual Property Office has formulated three strategies with a total of 12 tasks.
(1) The Intellectual Property Exchange under the Korea Invention Promotion Association will appoint potential private trading institutions to participate in the entire process of intellectual property transactions, provide operational consulting for the transaction, and enhance the professionalism of private trading institutions (plan to cultivate 36 professional institutions in the next five years).
(2) In order to trade developed patents at the early stage of research and development, that is, at the patent review stage, the Korean Intellectual Property Information Service Center website (KIPRIS) will provide the option of "expected transactions" to guide intellectual property transactions.
(3) Build a "creative trading platform" where companies can purchase ideas from consumers, starting from small ideas to create a good environment for intellectual property transactions. Promote the introduction of the "disguised bidder approach" of the intellectual property auction system.
(4) Establish a cooperative system of transaction-related public institutions such as the Korea Technology Guarantee Fund, the Invention Promotion Association, the Intellectual Property Strategy Institute, and the National Defense Science Research Institute, and combine the strengths of each institution to create a cooperative intellectual property transaction system.
(5) Use Fund of Funds (FOF) flexibly to build an intellectual property transaction support fund. It is planned to achieve a scale of 120 billion won in 2021, which will be used to invest in companies that purchase intellectual property rights of universities and research institutes and increase intellectual property transaction’s demand.
(6) Provide standard contract formation and accounting service support in order to expand the intellectual property transaction method of payment after the enterprise obtains the experience.
(7) Strengthen the protection of the exclusivity of the use right after the transfer of intellectual property rights, and invigorate intellectual property transactions.
(8) Improve relevant laws and systems to promote intellectual property transactions. For example, the intellectual property rights expected to be abandoned by universities and public research institutions are transferred back to the inventor to facilitate them to continue their efforts to commercialize the intellectual property.
