Increasing Patent Royalties
According to the Bank of Korea’s data, a total of US$7.47 billion was paid by Korea to foreign companies as intellectual property fees during the first eight months of this year, setting a new high.
The yearly amount is estimated to exceed US$10 billion amid the lack of source technology and the aggressive position of patent trolls. Patent royalties accounted for 66 percent of the amount.
Korean companies are exposed to an increasing number of patent lawsuits abroad these days. According to the Seoul International Competition Forum, Samsung faced 172 such lawsuits between 2009 and June this year, second only to Apple, and LG was involved in 132 lawsuits during the period to rank 12th.
This is partly because Korean companies have applied for a relatively smaller number of patents. They applied for 12,000 patents in 2012, which is equivalent to 20 percent of those applied for in the U.S. and 28 percent of those applied for by Japanese companies.
The fees flow mainly into the United States and the EU. Last year, US$6.847 billion was paid to the former and US$1.866 was paid to the latter. Japan took US$753 million, too.