IPO Allocates First Budget of 46.8 Billion Won, Emphasizing "IP Protection and Dispute Response"

The Intellectual Property Office (IPO), which was elevated from the former Korean Intellectual Property Office, has formulated its first budget proposal. The budget focuses on strengthening the protection of intellectual property rights and enhancing dispute response capabilities.

On the 25th, the IPO announced that it has set its budget for next year at 46.8 billion won. This represents an increase of 14.5 billion won (45.1%) compared to this year’s 32.316 billion won. The budget for next year includes significant funding for projects aimed at preventing and responding to intellectual property disputes.

Jinhwan Park, Director of the Intellectual Property Dispute Response Bureau (second from the left), is briefing on the budget proposal for the Intellectual Property Dispute Response Bureau at the Government Daejeon Complex on the 25th. Photo by the Intellectual Property Office

Last month, the IPO launched the Intellectual Property Dispute Response Bureau (comprising one bureau, five divisions, and 42 personnel) at the same time as its own establishment. The Dispute Response Bureau was created to oversee and coordinate intellectual property protection work, which had previously been dispersed across different government agencies. Its main role is to prevent intellectual property disputes and, when disputes arise, to establish and implement nationwide policies for swift, state-level responses.

Specifically, the bureau will pursue projects such as: eradicating cases of riding the Korean Wave (Hallyu) for unfair advantage; blocking the production of counterfeit goods using advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and supporting victims who purchase counterfeit products; providing support for litigation against non-practicing entities (NPEs) overseas; and building and distributing AI-based trade secret management systems.

The budget proposal for next year is expected to strengthen the role of the Dispute Response Bureau.

First, the IPO has allocated 9.4 billion won to block acts of riding the Korean Wave, which mislead consumers into believing that certain companies or products are Korean by capitalizing on the popularity of K-brands. This will be achieved by strengthening local investigations and crackdowns, establishing cooperation systems with overseas diplomatic missions, and formulating tailored response strategies such as sending warning letters, pursuing civil lawsuits, and filing joint applications.

Additionally, 1.6 billion won will be invested to support the introduction of anti-counterfeiting technologies (such as AI watermarking) to make it more difficult to manufacture counterfeit K-brand products and to allow consumers to easily verify genuine products. A further 2.9 billion won will be used to establish an AI-based appraisal support system that can quickly determine whether a product is counterfeit and provide relief to affected consumers.

The IPO will also expand consulting services for trade secret and technology protection, and pursue projects to build and distribute automated trade secret classification and leakage prevention systems using AI. This initiative aims to reduce the estimated 540 billion won in annual damages suffered by small and medium-sized enterprises due to technology theft. A budget of 1.2 billion won has been allocated for this purpose.

The budget for next year also includes 1 billion won to analyze trends and develop response strategies for intellectual property disputes with NPEs in industries where such disputes are frequent overseas, and to detect NPEs early and share relevant information with domestic companies, thereby enabling more effective responses to NPE-related disputes encountered by Korean companies abroad.

In addition, the IPO plans to comprehensively support the prevention and response to domestic and overseas intellectual property disputes by integrating the Public Patent Attorney Center, the Industrial Property Dispute Mediation Committee, and the Trade Secret Protection Center into an expanded "Intellectual Property Legal Support Center." The IPO will also open additional Overseas Intellectual Property Centers to further strengthen strategic responses to international intellectual property disputes.

IPO Commissioner Kim Yongseon stated, "Protecting intellectual property is a crucial task required to secure the nation's growth engine," adding, "The IPO will strive to create an environment where the public and businesses can freely engage in intellectual property activities without worrying about disputes, enabling everyone to grow together."

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