Greetings

Welcome to the website of the Korea Patent Attorneys Association (KPAA).
I am JEON Jonghag, President of the 44th Executive Board of the Korea Patent Attorneys Association.

Patent attorneys are professionals who protect innovation and help transform innovation into growth.

Today, we stand at a time of profound change, as artificial intelligence and advanced technologies rapidly reshape the boundaries of industries. Around the world, countries are engaged in increasingly intense competition centered on technology and intellectual property.

Over the next decade, Korea’s competitiveness will depend not only on its ability to develop excellent technologies, but also, to an even greater extent, on its capacity to protect those technologies through strong intellectual property rights and translate them into corporate value and industrial growth.

At the heart of this effort are intellectual property (IP) and patent attorneys.

Patent attorneys are professionals with expertise in both technology and law. Building on their expertise in securing intellectual property rights, patent attorneys are now expanding their role to identifying the value of technology and connecting that value to business growth and industrial competitiveness.

Ideas born in laboratories and industry must be transformed into strong intellectual property. That intellectual property must then lead to greater corporate competitiveness and investment. And such investment must, in turn, create new technologies and industries. We must build this virtuous cycle of innovation.

Transforming technology into intellectual property, and intellectual property into growth—
this is the new role of patent attorneys in the age of AI, and the direction in which the Korea Patent Attorneys Association must move forward.

The Korea Patent Attorneys Association will pursue three key changes.

First, we will further enhance the value of the expertise and professional responsibility of patent attorneys.

In an era when AI can present a wide range of possibilities, the role of professionals who can accurately verify, assess, and take responsibility for outcomes becomes even more important. The KPAA will work to ensure that the expertise of patent attorneys earns even greater trust from the public and businesses, and that its value is properly recognized throughout society and industry.

Second, we will help build an intellectual property system that properly protects the value of innovation.

We will work to further advance Korea’s intellectual property dispute resolution and rights protection systems so that new technologies and ideas are fairly valued and effectively protected.

In particular, we will devote our full efforts to the prompt introduction of key institutional measures that provide meaningful protection for innovation, including discovery procedures in intellectual property disputes, attorney-client privilege for communications between patent attorneys and their clients, and patent attorneys’ rights of representation in intellectual property infringement litigation.

Third, we will connect intellectual property to business growth and Korea’s national competitiveness.

We will work to build a virtuous IP ecosystem in which intellectual property is properly valued as a corporate asset, leads to investment and financing, and ultimately generates further research and development and new industries.

And at the starting point of all these changes are our members. The KPAA will continue to listen closely to our members and work to ensure that the expertise and role of patent attorneys receive even greater recognition and value in society.

The KPAA’s 80-year history has progressed alongside the development of intellectual property in Korea. Building on the experience and achievements of the past eight decades, we will now prepare for a new future.

As Korea advances from a technology powerhouse to a global intellectual property powerhouse,
the Korea Patent Attorneys Association will stand at the center of that transformation.

A country where great technologies become strong rights,
where strong rights lead to business growth,
and where that growth creates new innovation.

We will protect innovation and connect innovation to growth.

Thank you.