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 Patent News |
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| Subject : Protection Is More Important Than Registration of Patents |
| Date |
2010-03-31 |
Visit |
4520 |
Patent disputes among foreign companies for acquiring leadership in the global Smartphone market are fierce.
There have been suits between Apple, creator of iPhone, and Nokia, world’s number one cellular phone manufacturer.
Apple has also declared war on Google for patent infringement.
Such patent disputes of great scale are not inapplicable to Korean companies.
The number of patent disputes between Korean companies and foreign companies has been increasing.
According to data provided by KOTRA in December, the number of patent suits filed by foreign companies against Korean companies in 2006 was a meager 12, which has increased to 51 cases in 2009.
Furthermore, these disputes surround Korea’s major export items such as semiconductors, display panels, and cellular phones, which make it a more serious problem for Korean manufacturers.
However, South Korea has focused on creating intellectual property via R&D technological developments, thereby achieving the world’s fourth largest R&D investment/GDP ratio and the world’s fourth largest patent-registering title in 2008.
However, it is true that Korea has not paid as much attention to protection of its intellectual properties.
According to a survey conducted by Korea Trade Commission (KTC), 139 out of 2,107 participating companies responded that they have suffered approximately KRW 320 trillion of damages.
Thus, extrapolating this survey to all Korean companies shows significant damages suffered by Korean companies.
In order to counter this problem and help protect intellectual property rights, the Trade Commission of Ministry of Knowledge Economy has been running ‘Intellectual Property Infringement Research System.’ However, as illustrated in the S-board case, foreign suppliers are not punished when patent infringements are discovered; only the importers are.
This serves as a limit to the system run by Ministry of Knowledge Economy.
On the other hand, looking at International Trade Commission of United States shows an increase in international interests accompanying the consistent increase in patent suits. |
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