Korea: An IP Giant
One long overdue amendment to my blog was to add the Korean Intellectual Property Office ( "KIPO" ) to my list of national and regional patent offices. According to WIPO's World Intellectual Property Indicators 2009 KIPO has surpassed the EPO to become the fourth largest patent office in the world. Table 1: Patent Filings by Office 2007 Intellectual Property Office Filings USA 456,154 Japan 396,291 China 254,161 South Korea 172,469 EPO 140,763 Source: World Intellectual Property Indicators 2009 (WIPO) As one of the five largest patent offices in the world, the KIPO has joined the other four to collaborate on improving services for patent applicants. They launched a new joint website known as Five IP Offices on 8 Dec 2009. However, South Korea does not just have a large patent office. It also has a lot of inventors. Again, according to the WIPO report it is the fourth largest country in the world for patent filings. Table 2: Patent Filings by Country of Origin 2007 Coun...