KIPO Supports Patent Applications for 'Student Ideas' from Specialized and Meister High Schools

The Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) will assist students from specialized high schools and Meister high schools in filing patents for their ideas.

On the 6th, KIPO announced that it will recruit participants for the "14th Intellectual Property (IP) Meister Program" from the 8th to the 29th. This program, jointly conducted by KIPO, the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, supports the entire process from discovering ideas of vocational high school students to patent application and commercialization.

Provided by the Korean Intellectual Property Office

Participating students can directly experience the process from idea proposal, refinement, securing rights, prototype production, to technology transfer. KIPO has been conducting this project annually since 2011.

Students from specialized high schools and Meister high schools who wish to participate can form teams of 2 to 3 members and submit their idea proposals on the Invention Education Portal.

The application fields are divided into four categories: "Free Task," where ideas related to daily life are proposed without being confined to a fixed framework; "Theme Task," a demand-based problem-solving task required by companies in industrial sites; "Specialized Subject Task"; and "Cooperative Company Task."

A total of 34 large corporations, public enterprises, and mid-sized and small companies are expected to participate in the Theme Task.

POSCO Holdings Co., Ltd. proposed the task "Prediction system for reducing damage from nearby river and seawater flooding and wildfires," and the Korea Environment Corporation proposed "Development of a hydropower generation device applicable to national automatic water quality monitoring stations for carbon neutrality or exploration of installation plans for commercial hydropower generation devices" as tasks.

Schedule of the 'Intellectual Property Meister Program'. Provided by the Korean Intellectual Property Office

After the application deadline, KIPO will select 60 teams in the first round between June and July through evaluation by intellectual property experts and companies proposing tasks. The ideas of the selected teams will be supported with consulting from professional patent agencies from July to October to enable patent filing.

Subsequently, through a presentation evaluation held from October to December, 50 teams will be finally selected to receive awards such as ministerial commendations, as well as benefits including prototype production and technology transfer.

In particular, two teams awarded the highest prize, the Minister of Education Award, will be given opportunities for overseas training.

For more detailed information about the program, refer to the announcement posted on the Invention Education Portal or contact the Korea Invention Promotion Association for guidance.

Up to last year, a total of 12,231 ideas have been submitted to the IP Meister Program. Among them, 767 were actually filed as patents (491 registered). 128 ideas that were immediately applicable in industrial sites achieved technology transfer to companies in need of those ideas.

Mok Seong-ho, Director of the Industrial Property Policy Bureau at KIPO, said, "The series of processes where students directly solve inconveniences and problems occurring in daily life or industrial sites, and personally experience patent application and technology transfer, will become a valuable asset for participating students," and added, "We hope for the active interest and participation of specialized high school and Meister high school students who will showcase excellent ideas."

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