1. The Korean Intellectual Property Office expands the Korean wave of intellectual property by strengthening Korea-UAE cooperation

On the 16th (local time), the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) held a “Korea-UAE High-Level Meeting in the Intellectual Property Field” with Abdullah Ahmed Al Saleh, Vice Minister of Economic Affairs of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), in Abu Dhabi, and signed a “Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for Deepening Cooperation in the Intellectual Property Field” on the 16th (local time).

After signing the 'Comprehensive Cooperation MOU' between the Korean Intellectual Property Office and the UAE Ministry of Economic Affairs in 2010, cooperation projects such as patent examination agency and patent information system establishment have been promoted. 14 Korean Intellectual Property Office experts have been dispatched to the UAE Ministry of Economy to actively support the UAE to establish a high-quality patent examination system.

The MOU to be signed this time includes △patent information analysis and utilization know-how for effective development of national strategic technologies △intellectual property education cooperation for engineers and science and engineering graduate students △new technologies to effectively protect new technologies such as artificial intelligence, block chain, and metaverse. It includes contents such as exchange of information related to intellectual property and △examination cooperation in the field of industrial design.

2. Establishment of 'Service Trademark Priority Examination Division' dedicated to the Korean Intellectual Property Office, wholesale and retail business, etc.

The Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) announced on the 4th that it would newly establish and operate the 'Service Trademark Priority Examination Division' to deal with the increase in handling applications for the wholesale and retail business and restaurant industry (class 43), which account for the largest proportion of applications for priority examination in the service trademark field.

As the examination processing period is delayed due to the recent increase in trademark applications, the rate of applications for priority examination by applicants who want quick examination is increasing, and the share of the service sector is also increasing every year.

Lee In-sil, head of the Korean Intellectual Property Office, said, "We expect that the processing period for general service trademarks, which has been delayed, will be speeded up as the newly established department will exclusively handle applications for priority examination, such as wholesale and retail business."

3. Ministry of SMEs and Startups, large-scale R&D support for SMEs... 145.6 billion organized

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups (Ministry of SMEs and Startups) announced on the 30th that it will implement the '2023 Small Business Technology Innovation Development Project Notice' to help small and medium-sized enterprises innovate.

The SME technology innovation development project is a project to support R&D for each stage of innovation capability so that SMEs can scale up through technology development. Next year, 775 new tasks will be supported with a budget of 145.6 billion won. In addition, to support SMEs' entry into the overseas market, it plans to focus on supporting companies with global capabilities and promote challenging R&D in the private sector. The main reorganization of the 2023 technology innovation development project is to subdivide the support requirements for sales and exports in the 'export-oriented' task for customized R&D support for each growth stage of promising export small and medium-sized enterprises, register triadic patents in countries wishing to enter the market, and international standards and certifications We plan to support companies that have global expansion capabilities, such as acquisition.

4. “China, the number of patent applications in the United States doubled last year”

The Hong Kong South China Morning Post (SCMP), citing data from the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA), said that the added value of China's patent-intensive industries in 2021 will increase by 17.9% from the previous year to 14.3 trillion yuan (approximately 2600 trillion won). It was reported to be 12.4% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Patent-intensive industries account for 6.5% of total employment.

Citing a press release, a senior CNIPA official explained that the added value of US patent-intensive industries is 24% of GDP and 13% of employment, twice that of China. In the EU, patent-intensive industries account for 17.4% of GDP and 11% of employment, he added.

China has set a goal of increasing the contribution of patent-intensive industries to GDP by 13% by 2025. According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), China filed 1.59 million patent applications in 2021, more than double that of the United States. Equipment manufacturing such as aerospace, spacecraft, automobiles, and railways, and telecommunications fields are mainly supported by patents.