Patent Office IP Finance, Strong Support Effects for COVID-19 Response Companies

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] The Intellectual Property (IP) finance of the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) is contributing to business funding and corporate growth for companies responding to COVID-19.

According to KIPO on the 14th, Company A, which holds a patent for an improved gene-editing technology, received a 2 billion KRW IP-backed loan through an IP valuation in March last year and is currently developing a COVID-19 vaccine candidate. As a result, Company A achieved the milestone of publishing animal test results for the vaccine candidate in the international academic journal Vaccines last September.

Company B, which holds a foundational patent for an antiviral substance, received an investment of 3 billion KRW in January from a sub-fund of the Korea Fund of Funds’ patent account and is developing a COVID-19 treatment. Last month, it confirmed symptom improvement effects in a Phase 2 clinical trial in Indonesia.

The IP finance that these companies received through loans or investments establishes a foundation for raising funds based on the intellectual property rights they hold. It evaluates the economic value of IP and enables financing through guarantees, loans, or investments based on this evaluation.

Up to October, nine COVID-19 response companies received IP finance support, with a total of 29.1 billion KRW in funds mobilized. Among them, 11.5 billion KRW was provided to three companies developing COVID-19 treatments, 2 billion KRW to one vaccine development company, and 15.6 billion KRW to five diagnostic kit manufacturers.

This is the result of operating a rapid support procedure and expanding the support scale targeting COVID-19 response companies. According to KIPO, each company is showing remarkable achievements such as developing vaccine candidates through IP finance support.

Earlier, since February last year, KIPO has prioritized providing IP valuations for IP finance support to COVID-19 response companies and cooperated with banks to expedite loan screening processes.

As a result, the scale of IP investments through the Korea Fund of Funds’ patent account expanded significantly from 115.2 billion KRW in 2019 to 208.8 billion KRW last year.

Jeong Yeon-woo, Director of the Industrial Property Policy Bureau at KIPO, said, “KIPO will continue to support COVID-19 response companies holding excellent intellectual property so that they can raise funds based on their IP and enhance their global competitiveness.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.