Military Grows Stronger Through IP
30 April 2013
On April 8, 2013, the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO), the Korea Patent Attorneys Association and the country’s Army and Air Force signed a “working agreement for the building of a military intellectual property ecosystem” at the Korean Army and Air Force headquarters in Gyeryongdae, South Chungcheong.
The agreement is designed to raise IP awareness among military personnel as well as motivating them to innovate.
Over the years, the military has had insufficient IP management, so companies have exclusively registered patents based on the military’s R&D outcomes; the resulting monopolies have caused an increase in production prices during the procurement process for military goods. The military believes that a systematic IP management approach is therefore needed.
The army created an organization for IP creation and management in June 2012; the air force is working to establish its own organization serving the same purpose. Both will employ only qualified patent attorneys.
With expansion of IP knowledge training to general military personnel in mind, KIPO will allow the military to access its online resources to consolidate their training, it said in a press release.
There are further plans to develop a system to manage and compensate military employees’ inventions and hold invention contests for military personnel, which can help improve IP creation and usage.
