Korean Intellectual Property Office Sets 724.8 Billion Won Budget for Next Year, Emphasizing Creation, Utilization, and Protection of Intellectual Property

The Korean Intellectual Property Office has set its budget for next year at 724.8 billion won. The budget plan is focused on the creation, utilization, and protection of intellectual property.

On the 1st, the Korean Intellectual Property Office announced that it has drawn up a budget plan for next year totaling 724.8 billion won, an increase of 19 billion won compared to this year's budget of 705.8 billion won.

Juseongho, Deputy Commissioner of the Korean Intellectual Property Office (first from the left), is explaining the budget plan for the next year of the Korean Intellectual Property Office at the Government Complex Daejeon on the 1st. Photo by the Korean Intellectual Property Office

The main project budget for the creation, utilization, and protection of intellectual property next year has been set at 418.9 billion won, up 53.6 billion won from this year's 365.3 billion won.

The areas where the budget will be intensively invested include: providing high-quality examination and trial services; enhancing capabilities for the creation and utilization of intellectual property; building infrastructure for intellectual property rights protection; and improving research and development (R&D) efficiency based on patent big data.

Next year, the Korean Intellectual Property Office will apply artificial intelligence (AI) to examination and trial work to improve efficiency. It also plans to expand prior art searches to provide faster and more accurate examination services and to launch a new project for "Analysis of Overseas Patent Examination Systems" to help export companies more easily secure intellectual property rights abroad.

To this end, the budget for AI-based patent administration innovation will increase from 2 billion won this year to 3.6 billion won next year. The budget for domestic prior art searches for patents, trademarks, and designs will rise from 42.2 billion won to 51.3 billion won. Additionally, a new budget of 800 million won has been allocated for the analysis of overseas patent examination systems.

Next year, efforts will also be strengthened to enhance capabilities for the creation and utilization of intellectual property. This means expanding intellectual property valuation support and the purchase of secured industrial property rights so that domestic companies with innovative technologies can raise business funds using intellectual property as collateral, as well as supporting small and medium-sized enterprises with global capabilities to become export companies.

The related budget includes 12.7 billion won for intellectual property valuation support (up from 11.4 billion won this year), 15.5 billion won for the purchase and utilization of secured industrial property rights (up from 2.3 billion won this year), and 15.5 billion won for fostering global intellectual property (IP) star companies (up from 12 billion won this year).

The Korean Intellectual Property Office is also responding to the recent trend of foreigners preemptively registering domestic company trademarks by taking advantage of the Korean Wave, as well as the increasing number of products that could be mistaken for or confused with domestic goods. The budget plan for next year newly includes 9.4 billion won for supporting responses to the Korean Wave trend, 1.6 billion won for supporting the introduction of anti-counterfeiting technology, and 2.9 billion won for supporting AI-based counterfeit goods detection.

In addition, the budget plan for next year newly allocates 9.9 billion won for establishing an industrial property information analysis platform and 10 billion won for supporting IP-based technology commercialization strategies.

The budget plan drawn up by the Korean Intellectual Property Office will be finalized in December after submission to the National Assembly, review by the relevant standing committee and the Special Committee on Budget and Accounts, and a vote at the plenary session.

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