July 07, 2023
KIPO Commissioner Discusses WIPO’s Program and Budget Proposal
Commissioner Lee Insil of the Korea Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) participated in a virtual meeting with other heads of IP offices in the Asia-Pacific region and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) on May 2, 2023. As a specialized agency under the United Nations that oversees IP-related global services, policies and cooperation, WIPO hosted the meeting to discuss the future direction of WIPO's program and budget for 2024-2025.
In attendance were WIPO Director General Daren Tang and the heads of IP offices of the Asia-Pacific region such as Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Mongolia, etc. The meeting was held to explain the development strategy and direction of WIPO's project and budget for 2024-2025 and collect opinions from the participants. Director General Tang presented a plan to establish an ecosystem in which IP can be actively used for global economic development, such as improving the quality of international application service, etc.
Commissioner Lee responded that KIPO is willing to share its rich IP-related experience such as IP finance, commercialization, etc. and also declared its commitment to have close cooperation with WIPO to enhance the IP capacity of developing countries. Furthermore, she emphasized that official fees for the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) make up to 77% of WIPO's revenues and that Korean companies are fourth in the global rankings in patent applications. Based on these facts, there is an importance to improving customer service for WIPO's global IP services for Koreas users.
Afterwards, Commissioner Lee mentioned that "ever since the WIPO Director General Tang's official visit to the ROK in February 2023, cooperation between KIPO and WIPO has deepened. We will make our best efforts to play a key role with contributions regarding IP that fit the status of our country, which ranks fourth in the world for PCT applications."