Registers Some 20,000 Patents During Past 5 Years
Market research firm CEO Score recently analyzed the top 500 South Korean enterprises with regard to patent registration from January 2016 to June 10 this year. According to the firm, a total of 141,752 patents were registered by 345 out of the 500 in that period.
Samsung Electronics topped the list with 19,588 new patents, followed by LG Electronics (16,236), LG Chem (10,985), Hyundai Motor Company (8,246), and LG Display (8,000). The five companies accounted for 44.5 percent of the total patent registration. In addition, 711 and 156 were registered by Naver and Kakao, respectively.
Of the top 10 conglomerates, LG Group came in first with 43,088. Samsung Group took the second place with 35,034, followed by Hyundai Motor Group (15,160), POSCO Group (7,025) and SK Group (5,051).
By industry, IT, electrical and electronics accounted for 46.3 percent of the total, followed by automobile and auto parts (20,971), petrochemical (16,363), and shipbuilding, machinery and equipment (11,290).
In the seven future industries of AI, big data, IoT, bio-healthcare, intelligent robotics, autonomous driving and 3D printing, Samsung Electronics took the top spot with 5,475, followed by LG Electronics (4,290), Hyundai Motor Company (1,826) and SK Telecom (1,330). In Samsung Electronics, IoT- and big data-related patents took the large portion of the 5,475 patents. LG Electronics concentrated on IoT and intelligent robotics and Hyundai Motor Company concentrated on autonomous driving. Naver came in 12th with 410 and Kakao came in 27th with 99.
Samsung Group’s new patents in the industries added up to 6,208 in that period. The numbers of LG, Hyundai Motor, SK and Hanwha are 5,709, 3,334, 1,571 and 674, respectively.
In the IT, electrical and electronics industries, 10,782 patents were registered with regard to the seven future technologies. The number is 4,262 in automobile and auto parts, 2,630 in telecom, 2,006 in shipbuilding, machinery and equipment and 1,148 in service.