The global competitive power of a company comes from its ‘patents.’ This is the so-called patent management. However, it has been found that at least one of ten powerful small-scale companies selected and supported by the government has no overseas patents and two of the World Class companies selected this year have absolutely no domestic or overseas patents.
According to a patent investigation and analysis service provider WIPS (CEO: Lee Hyeong-chil) on the 28th, 17 of the 156 companies from ‘World Class 300’ selected and supported annually by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MoTIE) and Small and Medium Business Administration (SMBA) since 2011 have absolutely no overseas patents. In particular, companies A and B were found to have neither domestic nor overseas patents.
Although the companies were selected with their growth potentials recognized as the ‘hidden champions’ in Korea’s exporting industry, one in ten of these companies do not have a weapon to fight back competitors in the market. The fact that these companies do not have or are insufficient in overseas patents means that they can collapse at the patent litigation attacks as soon as they grow to a certain scale, and thus enter the overseas market.
The survey conducted by WIPS indicated that 10 of the 17 companies with zero overseas patents in the World Class 300 were mechanical, electronic and ICT companies. In addition, three each were metal and textile companies. Moreover, as many as 52 companies had less than ten overseas patents, and thus represented the bottom 30%.
According to the survey, the company performing patent management most aggressively out of 156 companies was found to be Seoul Semiconductor (CEO: Lee Jeong-hun), which was selected for the World Class 300 in 2012. This company, which is developing LED elements, has 1,124 domestic and 1,726 overseas patents and established a basis for overseas market entry by concluding cross-license contracts with key countries including the U.S., Japan and China. Seoul Semiconductor is investing 10% of its sales in R&D and is keeping an unrivalled position in the LED industry by securing patents and developing various applied products.
Dongjin Semichem (CEO: Lee Bu-seop) applied for 1,356 overseas and 891 domestic patents. Established in 1973, this company has been operating over around 40 years. It currently has overseas offices in Indonesia, China and Taiwan. Jusung Engineering (CEO: Hwang Cheol-ju), which is producing ALD process equipments, was analyzed to be a leading company as it secured as many as 1,198 patents in Korea alone and has applied for 806 patents abroad. “Jusung Engineering’s weapon is the aggressive R&D armored with the company’s intellectual property (IP) assets,” said a WIPS source.
In addition, Kyungdong Navien (CEO: Choi Jae-beom), a company manufacturing gas boilers, has positioned itself in the upper ranks with 497 domestic patents and 449 overseas patents.
In the software industry, Golfzon, a company developing golf simulator, made a prominent performance by securing 151 domestic and 288 overseas patents and Alticast (248 domestic and 168 overseas patents) also drew attention. WeMade Entertainment is the only game company selected for the World Class 300. It has applied for 32 domestic and three overseas patents. From display and electronic and IT components fields, LMS (189 domestic and 155 overseas patents) and Ace Technology (530 domestic and 452 overseas patents) are displaying satisfactory patent management performances respectively. In addition, Iljin Materials (78 domestic and 124 overseas patents) from chemical and metal industry and SL Corporation (428 domestic and 208 overseas patents) from automotive component industry are noteworthy.
Chairman Baek Man-gi of Korean Association for Intellectual Property Service said, “The competitive power of a company is determined by various factors, such as investment, in addition to technological barrier. Moreover, a company can be maintained with intangible assets only, such as its brand power. Therefore, although it cannot be generalized as a whole, it is risky for an exporting company not to have any overseas patents.”
“Over the years, the number of patent applications was included in the World Class 300 selection criteria and companies’ overall technological competitive power was examined by experts. However, as we recognized insufficiency in the qualitative patent review, we will assess companies in terms of their strategies for evading litigation suits abroad together with IT patent analysis by applying ‘R&D planning’ as a mandatory criterion from next year,” said Deputy Director Kim Seung-tae of SMBA Corporate Innovation Support Division. “From companies displaying insufficiencies in patent competitiveness, we plan to remove their qualifications through re-examination once every two years.”
World Class 300 project was transferred from MoTIE to SMBA last year. The World Class 300 selection to begin in January 2015 will be announced through integration with MoTIE’s Global Specialists project.
Jeong Mi-na | mina@etnews.com