The ever useful Patyellow website reports that the South Korean Presidential Councial on National Competitiveness is proposing to spend USD 400 Million by 2013 to protect the countries national IP base.
Payellow reports that the Council proposes setting up state-run "invention capital" companies to manage the holdings of IP.
Research institutes and universitites will apparently be encouraged to develop IP and set up "technological holding firms".
The Chosun Ibo website has a more expanded report in which it discussed the balance of payments deficit for patent licensing. The mobile phone industry pays around W500 billion in oryalties. The invention capital company will be supported to the tune of up to W500 billion
This commentator finds it fascinating the resources that East Asian countries are putting into developing and protecting their intellectual property. Not only is South Korea proposing to increase the budget massively (up to 3% by 2013), but Taiwan also has similar strategic projects. Contrast this to the USA and Europe where, if anything, intellectual property rights are being attacked. Whilst it is possibly true that there may be historic problems related to an overgenerous grant of patents in the past few years, it does not seem logical to conclude that the system itself is at fault.
