Seoul (South Korea), May 10: South Korea holds the largest number of standard-essential patents declared to the three major international standards bodies in the world, a report from the country's patent office showed Sunday.
The accumulated total of the country's standard-essential patents declared to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) stood at 3,344 as of last year, more than a sixfold increase from 2016, according to a report from Korean Intellectual Property Office.
Standard-essential patents refer to major technologies that are vital in producing standardized products. Declared patents must be verified by the standards organizations to be recognized as standard-essential patents.
The United States was the runner-up with 2,793 declared standard-essential patents, followed by Finland with 2,579 and Japan with 1,939, according to the report.
By company or institution, Samsung Electronics Co. of South Korea led with 2,799 patents, followed by Nokia Corp. of Finland with 2,559, Thomson Licensing SAS of France with 907 and Apple Inc. of the United States with 350.
Source: Yonhap
