The Korean Intellectual Property Office and K-water run together to foster industry

Kim Youngmin, the director of KIPO and Choi Gyeyoon, the president of K-water signed a MOU agreement at the headquarters of K-water in Daejeon on 21 last month to advance intellectual property system in the water field and co-prosperity of small & medium companies. The agreement is designed to accelerate the creation, protection and application system of intellectual property in the fields of water industry and disaster prevention technique, and to support the growth of small & medium companies which use intellectual properties for creating jobs and innovative economy. Water industry is a fundamental industry to produce and provide water for living and industrial use, and to transfer and dispose sewages and polluted water. It is growing very fast as a highly value-added advanced technology industry, and the scale of world's water market was $556 billion and it is expected to be $689 billion in 2018 with 4.2% of average annual growth. (data: Global Water Intelligence). Among the water sources on earth, freshwater lakes and stream water are only 0.3%(56,000㎦) except seawater, ice & snow and underground water, and the World Bank predicted that if the 20th century is 'the war of oil', the 21 century will be 'the war of water'. KIPO will expand the  strategy of intellectual property-centered technique acquisition to create high value-added intellectual properties in the water field, and support the acceleration of intellectual property system to manage, reinforce, promote and exercise the intellectual properties. Also they will support to strengthen the ability to cope with intellectual property violation and dispute in order to protect our intellectual property right effectively both in domestic and foreign market. K-water, on the other hand, will support the techniques and management for benefit sharing with small & medium companies, developing public & private joint investment skills, developing an option to purchase new products, introducing new technology for water supply, and test-bed for proof & performance test of the techniques in order for small & medium companies to grow consistently by effectively securing and commercializing the intellectual properties. "We are planning to actively cooperate with K-water in order for water related companies to grow through patented R&D technologies in the water field which will be passed to industrial world effectively. Also, we will cooperate with public enterprises to expand the fruits of R&D in the fields of territory, environment and the ocean, to industrial circles" said Kim.

Invention meets festival!　2014 Youth Invention Festival

Kim Youngmin, the director of KIPO and Kim Kwanglim, the chairman of Korea Invention Promotion Association (KIPA) held 2014 Youth Invention Festival at Seoul Coex for four days from July 24 to 27 to popularize invention education and to promote invention-friendly social atmosphere. Under the slogan 'Think CHANGE? Make CHANGE!', the event displayed the inventions from the best students, and provided experience programmes with 'Korea Student Invention Exhibition' and 'Korea Student Creativity Championship' as the central figures. The event is the nation's largest youth invention event where symposiums of invention education are combined. 27th Korea Student Invention Exhibition selected 170 highly competitive inventions which boasted students' novel and fresh ideas and they were displayed in this festival to attract the audiences. The event hall became more and more heated as Korea Student Invention Exhibition and the main tournament of Korea Student Creativity Championship, which is a yearly event since 2002, opened at the same time from 24 to 26. An official of KIPO said that the event would promote the atmosphere for students being more familiar with invention and for the ideas of people being led to invention.