A patent for technology that has been selected as an international standard, can not only win the world’s market within a short period of time, but also generate royalty fees for the owner of the patent.


This type of patent is called a ‘standardized patent’. When a new product or merchandize is developed in the same field, the standardized patent must be used.


Also, by knowing the contents of a standardized patent, there can be great benefit in developing new technologies to improve the original patent. When an improved technology is developed for a standardized patent, the new technology can become another international standard, establishing a development strategy that can dodge patent disputes.


For 6 recent technological fields that are receiving a lot of attention, such as the technology of compressing/restoring multimedia contents (DVD), KIPO’s ‘Research Society for International Patent Dispute’ (Chairman: AHN, Dae Jin) has surveyed the standardized patent authenticated by the international standard organizations (ISO) and made an announcement on the 4th (See Attached).


There are 980 standardized patents covered in the survey, including 143 patents related to compressing/restoring multimedia contents, 24 patents related to the multimedia system, 265 patents related to compressing/restoring images, 133 patents related to high-speed data transference, 307 patents related to digital TV broadcasting and 108 patents related to high-compression DMB. For each technological field, there were 4 ~ 26 companies that hold standardized patents.


For domestic companies, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, Daewoo Electronics, Pantech & Curitel, Electronic and Telecommunication Research Institute each have 1 ~ 18 standardized patents for each technology.


The 143 patents related to compressing/restoring multimedia contents were shared by 24 renowned companies including Sony, Mitsubishi, Philips, and Samsung, while 1080 companies entered licensing contracts to use these patents. Such a huge licensing amount reflects the size of the market.


Many domestic small/medium size companies are using technologies related to compressing/restoring images and high-compression DMB to sell DMB devices or to provide broadcasting service. These companies are not entering licensing contracts, and they risk international patent disputes.


An officer of KIPO’s ‘Research Society for International Patent Dispute’ commented, “We are providing information on standardized patents on our homepage (http://www.kipo.go.kr/wiz/user/dispute/index.html). We will continue our survey on standardized patents for recent IT technologies, such as digital audio technology, MPEG audio technology, wireless local communication technology, and RFID technology.”