1. Establishment of 'Strengthening Countermeasures for K-Brand Overseas Counterfeit Products'

The Korean Intellectual Property Office reported on the 2nd at the Emergency Economic Ministers' Meeting held at the Seoul Government Complex that it would push ahead with a plan to strengthen counterfeit K-brand counterfeit products.

In order to respond at the pan-governmental level to K-brand counterfeit products that are causing enormous damage to exports and job expansion of Korean companies, a risk warning system will be implemented for the top 10 counterfeit product industries and 10 countries. Counterfeit products are regularly checked on 1,604 online platforms in 114 countries around the world, and intensive support programs such as damage investigation and filing of lawsuits are introduced for frequently damaged industries such as fashion, cosmetics, and food.

Information on illegal preoccupation of foreign trademarks, which illegally apply for and register trademarks of domestic companies abroad, is continuously provided to the affected companies, and information on industries (items) in which unauthorized trademarks are frequently occupied is newly provided. Research and development of counterfeit product response technology used for identification of genuine products and counterfeit products, distribution history tracking, counterfeit and falsification prevention, etc., and continued promotion to the private sector.

Using a private counterfeit product monitoring company, the counterfeit product monitoring and blocking currently implemented in China and Southeast Asian countries will be expanded to online platforms around the world. It was also decided to expand domestic and international response systems against counterfeit products and improve laws and systems.

2. Expansion of IP finance by 23 trillion won by 2027… Nurture national strategic technology and K-content

On the 23rd, the 33rd National Intellectual Property Committee was held presided over by Prime Minister Han Deok-soo, and through the establishment of a comprehensive IP transaction portal and fostering of private intermediaries, the promotion of IP commercialization and transaction market activation, and the creation of an intellectual property (IP) investment fund, etc. IP financing will be expanded to 23 trillion won by 2027. It was announced that the 'National Intellectual Property Policy Direction' was deliberated and finalized.

In particular, it promotes securing core IP through intensive R&D investment in 12 national strategic technology fields and strengthens international standard patents in new industries such as artificial intelligence (AI) and 6G mobile communication (6G). In addition, support for intensively fostering K-contents such as K-pop, movies, and dramas will be strengthened.

Support will be strengthened so that K-content can be intensively nurtured by genre, such as movies, dramas, games, and webtoons, and policy finance will also be expanded to 410 billion won this year.

It has decided to support innovative start-ups such as IP-based start-ups, and to help start-ups grow into unicorn companies by creating scale-up-only R&D that will increase the scale to 3.5 trillion won by 2027.

3. The Korean Intellectual Property Office recognizes only up to 14 years of effective patent period for medicines.

The Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) recently finalized an amendment to the Patent Act to improve the term system for drug patent rights. The upper limit on the duration of domestic drug patents has been set at 14 years. It accepted the criticism that the lack of an upper limit on the duration of drug patents excessively protects drug patents, delaying the launch of generics (generic drugs) and increasing the burden of medical expenses on the public.

Pharmaceuticals have a different patent system compared to other items, given the long-term nature of their development. In general, it is operated in such a way as to extend the non-implementation period of the patent, which was delayed due to clinical trials or permission/examination by regulatory agencies, within 5 years during the patent period. This is because there is a big difference between the date of registration for establishment of patent rights and the date of product approval.

Developed countries set an upper limit on the entire validity period of a pharmaceutical patent, and the US has a 14-year limit and Europe has a 15-year limit. Within the maximum period, it is possible to extend the duration of the patent right, but the moment the maximum period is exceeded, the patent right also disappears.

According to the Korean Intellectual Property Office, there were 111 drug patents with an effective patent period of 14 years or more, accounting for 18% of the total. In terms of products that have received product approval, there are 79 cases, or about 22% of the total. This means that one in four medicines on the market have been under patent protection for more than 14 years. If it were in the US, the patent would have already expired and generics would have been released.

4. The Korean Intellectual Property Office, establishing a rapid and accurate valuation system... Establishment of expert council

The Korean Intellectual Property Office is launching an expert council for fast and accurate 'intellectual property valuation' and establishing a strategy to spread it throughout the market.

According to the Korean Intellectual Property Office on the 24th, intellectual property valuation, which calculates the present and future value of intellectual property in terms of amount and grade, has recently been used in the financial sector, such as loans and investments secured by intellectual property.

However, although it can be used in various fields other than finance, such as intellectual property transaction, patent infringement damage compensation, and technology leakage damage analysis, there is no value evaluation model for each specialized field, raising questions about reliability.

The Korean Intellectual Property Office launched the 'Expert Consultation on Expansion of Intellectual Property Valuation Strategy' to diagnose and solve problems in the intellectual property valuation system in the meeting room on the 19th floor of the Korea Intellectual Property Center in the afternoon.

In the consultative body, experts from industry, the legal community, and academia gather to discover issues in valuation by sector, such as transactions, compensation for damages, and technology leakage, and set research directions for developing a valuation model.