"Patent Registration Fee Reduction, In Reality Favoring Large Corporations"

Largest Benefits for Large Corporations and Foreigners from Patent Registration Fee Reductions

The Korean Intellectual Property Office's (KIPO) policy to reduce patent registration fees by 10% across the board has been criticized as a benefit primarily for large corporations and foreigners. KIPO announced that starting August 1 this year, it would implement revised rules on the collection of patent fees, including the reduction of patent registration fees. The agency stated that it would ease the economic burden by cutting patent registration fees by 10% for the first time in 20 years to promote technological innovation amid an era of high inflation and high interest rates.

According to data submitted by KIPO to Park Young-soon, a member of the National Assembly’s Industry, Trade, Energy, Small and Medium Enterprises Committee, on the 20th, most of these benefits actually go to large corporations and foreigners. An analysis of the data provided by KIPO to Park’s office revealed that over the past five years, the groups paying the largest amounts in domestic patent registration fees were foreigners and large corporations. The share of foreigners and large corporations was 69.2% in 2018, 70% in 2019, 68.3% in 2020, 68% in 2021, and 67.9% in 2022, consistently accounting for 67% to 70% over the recent five years.

Park stated, “The Yoon administration claims serious tax revenue shortfalls, cutting difficult budgets for ordinary citizens and livelihood expenses while only enacting tax cuts for the ultra-rich. Since large corporations are not deterred from filing patents due to registration fees, the system should be improved to provide additional support to small and medium-sized enterprises and public research institutions that truly find patent registration fees burdensome.”

Furthermore, Park noted, “Foreigners account for 40% of annual patent registration fee payments, so this support will greatly benefit foreigners filing patents domestically. However, there are almost no systems abroad that reduce patent registration fees for foreigners, making it difficult for our companies filing patents overseas to receive such benefits.” He added, “It is questionable whether we should reduce our tax revenue by granting patent registration fee reductions even to foreigners registering patents for protection within Korea.”

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