Korea Ranked Eighth in GIPC International IP Index

The Global Intellectual Property Center (GIPC) announced on March 9 that Korea recorded 23.33 points and ranked eighth in the GIPC International IP Index last year. The United States was on the top of the list with 28.53 points, followed by Britain (27.61), Germany (27.28), France (27.16), Singapore (25.38), Australia (24.7) and Japan (23.25).

The GIPC International IP Index, which has been released three times since 2012, is to look into the current status of the protection and execution of intellectual property rights and IPR environments by country. Korea was included in the list of 30 countries around the world last year.

The index consists of the six categories of Patents, Copyrights, Trademarks, Trade Secrets, Enforcement and International Treaties. These have a total of 30 sub-indices, each on a scale of 0 to 1. 

Last year, Korea ranked fourth in the world in terms of the number of patent applications by revising laws for the enhancement of IPR and expanding government-led R&D investment. Potential copyright infringement in Korea decreased from 21.6% to 16.0% between 2009 and 2013 while digital music sales showed an increase of approximately 15%. Still, Korea recorded no more than 0.74 points in copyright protection period and 0.5 in fulfillment of guidelines and policy related to patent software licensing.