1. South Korea ranked 10 in the world in “2025 international intellectual property index”.
- According to the “2025 international intellectual property index” published by US Chamber of Commerce, South Korea entered the top 10.
- In the trade secret protection area, South Korea significantly rose in international rankings (from 16th to 9th)…to be internationally recognized for its technology protection achievements.
On April 24, 2025, KIPO published that, in a situation where the intellectual property rights field has been given importance due to changes in the international trade environment, South Korea ranked 10th overall out of 55 countries in the “2025 international intellectual property index” published by global Innovation Policy Center under the US Chamber of Commerce.
The international intellectual property index is calculated by synthesizing 53 detailed indicators in the 10 fields, such as patent, trademark, trade secret, intellectual property enforcement, system efficiency, joining an international treaty, etc. South Korea ranked 2nd for 8 consecutive years in the patent field, 4th in the trademark field and 1st for 6 consecutive years in the system efficiency field, showing excellent performance.
Notably, South Korea ranked 9th, up 7 places from 16th in 2024 in the trade secret protection field, leading the way to the top 10 in this year’s overall rankings. This is the result of international recognition of the performance significantly strengthening publishment and damages relating to infringement of trade secret by the amendment to the Unfair Competition Prevention Act in 2024.
Looking at the international rankings, USA ranked 1st, followed by England, France, Germany and Sweden. Japan was 7th and China was 24th.
The director of the intellectual property protection and international cooperation bureau of KIPO said, “These results are positive in the point that the high level of intellectual property is the driving force behind industrial development and it can be also used as a good card in trade negotiations…We will raise Korea’s intellectual property to the highest level in the world by carrying forward intellectual property commercialization through the ‘luxury IP’ strategies being pursued by KIPO.”
2. KIPO held a ‘semiconductor patent conference’ and ‘semiconductor business meeting’.
KIPO held the ‘semiconductor patent conference to analyze the changing circumstances occuringin the K-semiconductor industry and to seek ways to develop the Korean semiconductor industry by utilizing intellectual property rights.
Hyeongjoon KIM, head of the next generation intelligence semiconductor foundation, diagnosed a risk of K-semiconductor through a topic presentation, ‘K-semiconductor risk and chance’, and emphasized that the Korean government’s positive R&D support, etc. be required in the AI semiconductor area. After that, Hyunseok LIM, head of the semiconductor fabrication process examination division of KIPO introduced KIPO’s providing of rapid patent examination of the semiconductor technology, creation of high-quality patents and policy of strengthening industrial communication, etc. through the topic presentation, ‘KIPO’s semiconductor industry support policy’.
Byoungnyun KIM, analyst of Korea Intellectual Property Strategy Agency, suggested, through a topic presentation, ‘trend of semiconductor technology based on patent bigdata’, that there is a need to establish a strategy to lead ultra-gap technology, to strengthen market dominance with strategies to bridge the technology gap, and establish a strategy of selection and concentration through organic linkage between industry, academia and research.’ Jeonghyeon PARK, director of LX Semicon Co., Ltd., presented ‘status of Korean fabless’, Yangpaeng KIM, specialized researcher at the Industrial Research Institute, presented ‘US Trump Government’s IP, trade and semiconductor policy’, and Seonghun Jwa, professor in Seoul National University of Science and Technology, presented ‘semiconductor technology standard and patent.’
The commissioner of KIPO said, “KIPO will continue to support semiconductor companies and researchers so as to build a stronger patent portfolio by strengthening cooperation with Korean semiconductor companies and to have the competitiveness of the K-semiconductor industry in the global market by making an innovative technology into a ‘luxury patent’.”
3. KIPO held a strategic conference to introduce and expand a job invention system.
KIPO hosted the strategic conference to introduce and expand a job invention system for the industry, science and technology and the legal profession.
As a user (company, etc.) succeeds to the employee’s (researcher) invention related to the duties, a job invention system is a system that provides fair compensation to the employee (researcher). (It is operated by in-house job invention regulations within the company, etc.)
This conference was prepared as part of proactive administration to raise awareness of a job invention across all walks of life.
According to the recent survey of Korea Institute of Intellectual Property (2024 intellectual property activity survey), an introduction rate of job invention regulations by small and medium companies increased by 6.3% compared to the previous year, showing a continuous improvement by exceeding 40% for the first time. However, it is still lacking compared to big companies.
In this regard, to raise the awareness of a job invention, KIPO held for the first time a large conference where about 400 people (such as CEOs of companies interested in the job invention system, intellectual property officers by institution, patent attorneys, and lawyers, etc.) attended.
In the conference, the relevant experts’ presentations were provided regarding ►the content of the overall job invention system, such as basic procedures of the job invention system and methods of system introduction, and cases of fair compensation, and ►job invention-related major trials and dispute cases, issues, etc. Further, in the conference, they also shared ► best practices from job invention certified companies running the job invention system in an exemplary manner
KIPO provides a job invention-related consultation for small and medium companies and middle market companies and operates a certificate of excellent company in job invention compensation, etc., so that a job invention system can be established.
4. KIPO and the Ministry of SMEs and Startups jointly held a meeting for venture business policy.
KIPO and Ministry of SMEs and Startups (hereinafter, referred to as the ‘MSME’) held a policy meeting with venture companies.
This joint meeting of KIPO and MSME was prepared as part of proactive administrative measures to solve intellectual property problems of venture companies pioneering future new industry fields and global markets and to promote overseas expansion through the support and cooperation from ministries and agencies, based on an average of 10.1 or more industrial property cases.
Although about 40,000 venture companies only account for 0.5% of all companies, sales totaled 242 trillion Korea Won which is ranked 3rd in the financial world. Since venture companies’ export share is 4.2 times and research and development ratio to sales is 5.8 times higher compared to general small and medium companies, they play a role in providing innovation to the industrial ecosystem.
The venture companies attending the meeting suggested: ►to improve a venture company’s performance reward system, ►to improve the AI technology protection and patent examination system, ►to expand support for a small or medium company’s technology protection and export, ►to strengthen support for an innovative company’s intellectual property commercialization, and ►to expand support of cooperation from ministries and agencies for a company holding excellent patent(s), etc.
The chairman of Korea Venture Business Association requested support and cooperation from KIPO and MSME overseeing venture policy and intellectual property policy, so that venture companies are able to continue to innovate in the midst of changes in the overseas economic, investment and technological environment. KIPO and MSME agreed to join forces to lay the foundation for growth of a sustainable innovation venture company.
The vice minister of MSME said, “venture companies are in a difficult business environment, along with the slowing economic growth due to US tariff policy and in the wake of the US-China tariff war, and domestic economic downturn due to the triple whammy of high prices, high exchange rates and high tariffs … we will actively reflect, in policy, the issues suggested in the meeting, and both of MSME and KIPO will also do the best to increase policy synergy by positively cooperating together in the intellectual property area highly related to KIPO, such that venture companies can strengthen competitiveness.”
The commissioner of KIPO stressed, “in order for venture companies to have differentiated competitiveness in the new trade and trade environment changes, it is more important than anything else to create and use a luxury patent capable of broadly protecting core technology…KIPO will further strengthen cooperation with MSME such that venture companies can get the luxury patent strategies optimized to overseas countries and the protection support.”
5. KIPO publishes the results of collaboration with 5 advanced design countries (Industrial Design 5: ID5).
According to KIPO, a report, ‘the protection of design in metaverse’ which was led by South Korea and recently completed by cooperation with ID5 was published through the ID5 official website (https://id-five.org).
This report is characterized in that, regarding designs based on the development of new technologies, such as virtual reality, augmented reality, etc., the registration availability and protection status by country is compared and organized with hypothetical examples.
ID5 is a consultative body of 5 advanced countries in the design field (South Korea, USA, Japan, China and Europe). Since the launch in 2016, ID5 have been consistently carrying out about 30 collaborative projects. The results thereof have been published to users all over the world through the ID5 official website, promoting the development of the user-friendly design protection system.
In addition to this report of metaverse, a user guide for the view and drawing requirements of designs, led by China, was completed and published. Since this user guide includes specific information, such as commonalities and differences between drawing formats in each country, and view requirements of partial design, etc., it is expected to be helpful in practice of filing overseas design applications.
The director of the trademark & design examination bureau under KIPO said, “since the design field has a great variation in the design protection systems around the world, compared to the patent or trademark field, an international cooperation for harmonization of the legal systems is more important…We will carry forward ID5 cooperative projects to be helpful to the users and actively publish the results thereof, thereby demonstrating international leadership in the intellectual property area.”
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