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The Korean brand is noted for its product excellence.
Samsung and LG are leading in
terms of patent applications. Would you say that the number of patent applications equals
more innovation? Would you say that Korea now has an innovation economy?
Well, as I mentioned earlier, numbers don't tell the entire story.
As Bumrae had mentioned
when we looked at this chart for the first time, Korean companies realized that numbers
don't necessarily equate to profits or protection against lawsuits.
The key is to make sure
you are being innovative and your focus is on protecting that innovation.
To answer your question more directly, I would say that Korea is clearly an innovating country.
I see this in telecommunications all the time.
It's important to focus on
the most innovative technology. When it comes to telecommunications, for example, there are standards that govern almost every
piece of technology produced. Every chip in
your smartphone operates on algorithms, procedures
and methods, and they all need to be standardized. If they weren't, then your smartphone in the
AT&T network could not communicate with a smartphone in the Verizon network. If I had
an iPhone and wanted to talk to Bumrae on his Samsung Galaxy, I wouldn't be able to
communicate with him without these standards.
The telecommunications industry has organizations that come up with these standards, and these
organizations include members of that industry. A 3GPP
standardization organization that creates
standards for our smartphone and telecommunications technologies has members that include Samsung,
LG, Motorola, Ericsson, and Qualcomm.
These are the members. They all participate together in standardizing technology.
Telecommunications technology has matured so much over the last few years that when
a company files a patent application, it's
usually for an incredibly small change over existing technology.
You might ask, "is that really innovative?"
You changed an 8-bit word to a fewer amount of bit. Is that really innovative?
In many cases, you can still get a patent on it and it becomes
a requirement of the standards. Why is that important?
If it is a requirement of the standards,
that means everybody in the industry is practicing your technology.
Even though it seems like a small insignificant, everybody practices it.
And everybody practicing a technology has to have a license or they can't practice it. If they can't practice
it, they can't sell their smartphone.
For example, my client LG, we file hundreds (probably close to a thousand) patents
every year.
Many of them are telecommunications-based, and many seem like very small leaps in innovation.
Almost every single one of them that are standard blocking makes them money in licensing fees
and from the standardization organizations—and those are very important. Yes, it's innovation
and it's valuable. I definitely see Korea as an innovative country.
There are many levels to innovation, and I'm hoping to see this happen in
other technology sectors, not just the one
that I'm familiar with.