1. Intellectual Property Statistics Trends Through November 2023

Jiyong Jung Patent Attorney & Attorney at Law

1. Application statistics analysis

According to the intellectual property statistics trends released by the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) on December 15, 2023, the cumulative number of patents, utility models, designs, and trademark applications filed from January to November 2023 increased by 0.2% from the same period of the previous year to 499,314. This represents a significant increase in applications after the second half of 2023, compared to a 2.1% decrease from the same period of 2022 to May 2023 and a 0.5% decrease to September 2023.

Analyzing the individual applications for intellectual property, on a cumulative basis, patents increased by 2.9% from the same period of the previous year to 213,185 applications, while designs decreased by 3.0% to 49,775 applications, trademarks decreased by 1.7% to 233,879 applications, and utility models decreased by 12.5% to 2,475 applications.

Only patents have increased from the same period of the previous year throughout 2023, while all other intellectual property rights have decreased. However, the growth rate of patent applications has slowed down compared to the 3.7% and 3.0% increases from the same period of the previous year in the second and third quarters, respectively. On the other hand, the number of applications for designs, trademarks, and utility models has been recovering since May 2023, maintaining a relative growth rate. In particular, the recovery rate of trademarks is quite rapid compared to the 6.1% and 2.6% decreases that were observed in the second and third quarters, respectively.

The number of patent and utility model examination requests decreased by 1.2% from the same period of the previous year but increased by 1.7% in November compared to the same month of the previous year.

 

2. Registration statistics analysis

Intellectual property registration increased at the same rate as the previous quarter. The total number of registrations increased 11.1% from the same period last year to 331,704. Among them, trademark registrations increased 32.1% to 161,237, which is a smaller increase than the previous quarter but still led to the increase in the total number of registrations. Meanwhile, patents, designs, and utility models decreased 0.9% (123,777), 9.3% (45,524), and 14.3% (1,166), respectively. However, the decline in patents and utility models narrowed.

 

3. Requests for trial

The number of trial requests filed increased by 15.3% compared to the same period of the previous year, reaching 6,828 cases. This is a significant increase compared to the 12% growth rate recorded in the second and third quarters. Of these, 2,908 cases were related to patents and 3,594 cases were related to trademarks. This is compared to the figures for the third quarter of 2,960 cases for trademarks and 2,451 cases for patents. In the fourth quarter, the number of cases filed for both trademarks and patents increased by about 500, with the increase in trademark cases being particularly noticeable.

 

2. Intellectual Property activity survey for 2023

On December 29, 2023, the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) announced the results of a survey conducted on 1,400 companies and 282 universities and public institutions in the field of intellectual property infrastructure and key intellectual property activities. The results of this survey were presented separately for companies and universities/public (research) institutions. Upon examining the main content, the following points were observed. The numerical values in parentheses below represent approximate rates of decrease or increase compared to the most recent survey.

 

 

 

 

 

Companies

 

1. Intellectual property activities infrastructure

• Percentage of organizations with a dedicated IP department: 50.1% (increase of 3%)
  14. Percentage of those organizations with an independent dedicated department: 1.8% (decrease of 1.3%)
• Percentage of organizations with dedicated IP personnel: 95.8% (decrease of 2.3%)
  14. Percentage of organizations with dedicated personnel: 17.0% (increase of 6%)
• Average number of personnel per IP department: 1.8
• Average number of dedicated personnel: 0.3
• Percentage of IP personnel who have received training: 36.9% (increase of 8%)
• Percentage of organizations utilizing IP services from external specialized agencies: 68.1% (increase of 0.2%)

 

2. Utilization and performance of intellectual property

• Adoption of external intellectual property
  14. Percentage of companies adopting one or more domestically introduced IPs: 11.6% (average of 4.4 cases, increase of 1.2%)
  14. Percentage of companies adopting one or more internationally introduced IPs: 1.3% (average of 5.5 cases, increase of 0.7%)
• Overseas applications
  14. Companies filing one or more overseas patent applications: 20.3% (increase of 4.6%)
  14. Companies with registered overseas patents: 15.1% (increase of 4.9%)
• Percentage of companies with regulations on employee invention compensation: 41.4% (increase of 1.1%)
• Type of compensation
  14. At the time of invention disclosure, application, or registration: 41.0%
  14. When application is deferred: 13.5%
  14. Upon implementation or disposal: 16.8%
• Utilization rates by type of rights
  14. Patent rights: 72.9% domestically, 68.4% internationally
  14. Utility model rights: 77.6%
  14. Design rights: 64.2%
  14. Trademark rights: 70.0%

 

3. Patent-based intellectual property activities

• Activity rates by step – Increase in the proportion at the performance creation step and decrease at the R&D planning and management step
  14. Percentage of organizations conducting prior patent (technology) searches: 62.3% (decrease of 9.4%)
  14. Percentage of evaluation or automatic succession for employee inventions: 42.8% (increase of 5.9%)
  14. Percentage of organizations conducting IP due diligence: 28.8% (decrease of 12.8%)
• Collaboration ratios with transactional agencies and marketing companies
  14. Ratio of business commissioning and agreement signing
      21. Universities/public (research) institutions: 18.9%
      21. Domestic public institutions: 12.2%
      21. Technology trading companies (domestic): 11.2%
      21. Technology trading companies (international): 4.0%
  14. Utilization ratio of technology transaction systems
      21. Domestic online: 24.5%
      21. Domestic offline: 24.4%
      21. International online: 18.7%
      21. International offline: 18.9%

 

4. Universities/public (research) institutions

• Intellectual property activity infrastructure

• Percentage of organizations with a dedicated IP department: 98.2% (decrease of 0.3%)
  14. Form of R&D organization or industry-academia cooperation office: 90.7% (decrease of 1.4%)
  14. Within general administrative organization: 7.5% (increase of 1.1%)
• Percentage of organizations with dedicated IP personnel: 47.8% (increase of 2.8%)
• Average number of dedicated personnel
  14. Average across all institutions: 2.0 (decrease by 0.1)
  14. Average among institutions with dedicated personnel: 4.2 (decrease by 0.4)
• Percentage of IP personnel who have received training: 68.5% (increasd of 2.7%)
• Percentage of organizations utilizing IP services from external specialized agencies: 88.0% (decrease of 4.4%)

 

4. Utilization and performance of intellectual property

• Overseas applications
  14. Filing one or more patent applications: 52.9% (increase of 2.3%)
  14. Registered patents: 39.1% (decrease of 0.1%)
• Percentage of organizations with regulations on employee invention compensation: 93.2% (decrease of 0.8%)
• Type of compensation
  14. At the time of invention disclosure, application, or registration: 89.6%
  14. When application is deferred: 15.4%
  14. Upon implementation or disposal: 88.1%
• Utilization rates by type of rights
  14. Patent rights: 27.0% domestically (decreased of 0.9%), 36.3% internationally (increase of 4.2%)
  14. Design rights: 11.6%

 

5. Patent-based intellectual property activities

• Activity rates by step increase in the proportion at the performance creation step and decrease at the R&D planning and management step
  14. Percentage of organizations conducting prior patent (technology) searches: 70.5% (decrease of 0.7%)
  14. Percentage of evaluation or automatic succession for employee inventions: 72.0% (increase of 1.4%)
  14. Percentage of organizations conducting IP due diligence: 62.6% (increase of 1.1%)
• Ratio of research and development outcome processing
  14. Percentage of official rights protection (e.g., patent applications): 92.1%
  14. Percentage of informal rights protection (e.g., trade secrets): 1.4%
  14. Percentage of applications deferred or abandoned: 6.5%
  14. Collaboration ratio with external institutions and companies for technology transactions and marketing purposes
  14. Domestic companies: 29.9%
  14. Domestic public institutions: 42.9%
  14. Technology trading companies (domestic): 40.7%
  14. Technology trading companies (international): 7.1%