Korea, with 4,747 applications, surpassed the Netherlands and ranked 6th place in the number of international patent applications by Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) in 2005. This is an increase of 33.6% compared with the previous year.


The USA ranked first in the world, filing the largest number of PCT applications in 2005, followed by Japan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Republic of Korea and the Netherlands. Korea moved from 8th in 2001, to 7th in 2003, and to 6th in 2005.


Korea leads developing countries in the number of PCT applications. In the patent applicant ranking of the developing countries, Samsung Electronics is at the top with 438 applications, and LG Electronics is in the second place with 332 applications.

With the current growth rate, Korea is expected to surpass U.K. and France for the 4th place in the ranking within next 5 years, following the USA, Japan and Germany.


The number of Korean PCT applications has increased dramatically with the growth of technical competitiveness. With this growth of competitiveness comes the recognition of needs to protect Korean technology against international patent disputes.


The continuous increase of the number of Korean PCT applications is also due to the designation of Korean Intellectual Property Office as International Searching Authority and International Preliminary Examining Authority, in December 1, 1999. Futhermore, it made filing PCT applications easier for KIPO to receive the applications in Korean language.