KEPCO presses patent team for profits

KEPCO’s patent team is working overtime to establish a patent infrastructure and to manage research and development. The team is also tasked to support patent management of the company’s branch offices.

Since establishing a patent strategy promotion task force team in September 2008, the Korea Electric Power Company or KEPCO has been implementing various patent management measures, developing patent organisation models and formulating management strategies.

"These days intangible assets such as technology and patents are emerging as the core assets of a company's competitiveness. And this can be a new window of opportunity for KEPCO," according to an official KEPCO statement. "If our newly-launched patent management is successful, we can expect to see profit from intellectual property, which have high added value, and enhance KEPCO's corporate image as a global engineering company," it added.

KEPCO explained that leading companies are not just developing new technologies but are also investing vast amounts of money and time in the research and development of future growth engines.

It noted that Korean conglomerates such as Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics are executing aggressive patent strategies to protect their assets. "For example, Samsung Electronics has more than 400 personnel dedicated to patent management, and LG Electronics earned over a hundred million dollars in patent income in 2007," stated KEPCO.