Lee International

Despite the difficult circumstances of COVID-19, the number of intellectual property (patent, utility model, design, trademark) applications filed by small-to-medium sized companies and venture companies has increased in 2021 in Korea.

The Korean Intellectual Property Office announced that the number of intellectual property applications in the first half of 2021 in Korea has increased by 12.3% compared to the same period of 2020 with a total of 284,135 applications filed.  This is 7.8% higher than the 4.5% increase in the first half of 2020, which can be interpreted as continuing interest and activity of intellectual property by Korean businesses.

❚Trend of Total Intellectual Property Application (June of 2021, accumulated)

In view of types of intellectual property rights, the number of applications for trademarks, which displayed a rapid increase of 18.9% compared to the first half of 2020 (120,833 cases), was the highest at 143,652, and the number of patent applications was 106,657, also recording a high increase rate of 7.4%.

In view of types of applicants, the intellectual property applications filed by small-to-medium sized companies and venture companies increased by 18.6% compared to the same period of the previous year with a total of 87,729 applications.  Such increase rate was the highest in the past 20 years (2001 to 2021), which led the total increase in intellectual property applications.  The magnitude of this increase is evident in comparison to the increase rates of large sized companies (0.3%), universities and public research facilities (6.7%) and individuals (13.7%) in the same periods.

Venture companies filed a total of 30,493 applications, displaying the highest increase rate with an increase of 31.0%, which is close to 3 times the number of the entire average (12.3%).  As so, it is evaluated that the current administration’s intellectual property and venture-focused political basis has greatly contributed to the wave of applications that provides evidence of such involvement in innovative activities.