In January of this year, the World Economic Forum said that South Korea “is now at a critical inflection point.” The country, the WEF’s Saemoon Yoon wrote, “has succeeded in becoming an economic powerhouse with a technological edge, especially through big conglomerations manufacturing software and hardware.” 

But now, Yoon, wrote, as the tech sector is starting to change, and startups are seeing increased influence in the market. Can South Korea maintain its edge and continue in its position as a market leading tech innovator? 

South Korea has been “striving to use startups to foster disruptive innovation, making the balance between industrial conglomerates and startups ever more crucial,” Yoon wrote.  

“[But] South Korea hasn’t always been known as a startup friendly country. This recent development only occurred in the last few years thanks to government support schemes for startups like TIPS (Tech Incubator Program for Startups), a state led incubation programme that discovers and nurtures promising startups by selectively matching them with government funding. In 2017, South Korea established the Ministry of SMEs and Startups to systematically oversee various startup support schemes to continue and reinforce the momentum,” the WEF report said. Venture investments have also poured into Korean startups and have grown 78 percent year-on-year in 2021, surpassing W7.7 trillion (US$6.4 billion). The number of new jobs created by startups in 2021 surpassed the number of jobs created by the four largest conglomerates combined. 

“Active participation from major corporates to look inside and out to nurture and collaborate with startups is pivotal,” Andre Yoon, CEO and cofounder of MakinaRocks, told the WEF. “For example, three of the four founding members of MakinaRocks were from SK Telecom (a conglomerate) and funded by the same company. The paradigm is clearly shifting towards a startup ecosystem where corporates are opening doors to entrepreneurs to leverage their own technologies that would otherwise have been limited in terms of their usage.” 

The shift of mindset towards embracing risks in the workforce is also playing a significant role, Saemoon Yoon notes. “Recent surveys studying the profiles of successful entrepreneurs show that nearly a third of startup founders left their stable jobs working for conglomerates like Samsung, LG and Hyundai. This shift is more visible in the younger generation.” 

With increasing open-mindedness and diversity in place, Yoon argues, South Korea will be able to evolve into a leading innovation hub globally. With the country at a pivotal stage, we turned to IP professionals in the region in order to understand better what clients need today. Asia IP asked a large number of professionals – mostly in-house counsel and corporate legal managers – what they were looking for from their legal service providers. From their answers, we have compiled our list of South Korea’s 50 IP Experts, those lawyers who understand just what their clients need and are able to provide them with the best practical advice.  

Top-notch individuals are increasingly easy to come by in Seoul, although the legal market itself still skews to old school, very established firms. Lee & Ko, for example, placed nine lawyers on our list; Kim & Chang placed seven lawyers, together accounting for nearly one-third of the overall list.  

Lee International IP & Law, Nam & Nam and Yulchon each placed three lawyers on the list, and a host of firms had two each: Bae, Kim & Lee; PI IP Law; Shin & Kim; Yoon & Lee International Patent & Law Firm; You Me Patent & Law Firm; and Y.P. Lee, Mock & Partners. 

Thirteen different firms each placed one lawyer on our list, accounting for more than one-quarter of all lawyers named, demonstrating that while the largest firms still dominate, smaller upstarts are hot on their heels. 

Most of the lawyers named to our list have multiple practice specialties. Many of them are litigators, while others concentrate on prosecution work or provide strategic advice.  

All of them have something in common: they are experts in their fields and, in one way or another, they provide extra value for their clients. They are Asia IP’s South Korea IP Experts.

– GREGORY GLASS 

South Korea’s IP Experts is based solely on independent editorial research conducted by Asia IP. As part of this project, we turned to in-house counsel in South Korea, Asia and elsewhere around the world, as well as Asia-focused partners at international law firms, and asked them to nominate private-practice lawyers including foreign legal consultants, advisers and counsel.  

The final list reflects the nominations received combined with the input of editorial team at Asia IP, which has nearly 45 years of collective experience in researching and understanding South Korea’s legal market. 

All private practice intellectual property lawyers in South Korea were eligible for inclusion in the nominations process; there were no fees or any other requirements for inclusion in the process. 

The names of our 50 IP Experts are published here. Each IP Expert was given the opportunity to include their biography and contact details in print and on our website, for which a fee was charged.