KAIST has been selected as one of Asia’s leaders in top intellectual property, as they have received the Asia IP Elite Awards 2019 in the area of R&D Institution Team of the Year at the Intellectual Property Business Conference (IPBC) Asia 2019 held in Tokyo, Japan on October 29. In addition, the Korea Intellectual Property Office gave a high ranking to KAIST in the area of technology transfer among universities.

IPBC Asia 2019 is an annual event hosted by Intellectual Asset Management (IAM) magazine, the United Kingdom’s leading intellectual property (IP) journal, and gathers IP experts from around the world to share and discuss strategic insights, practices, and issues. It also awards titles to companies and institutions that create the highest intellectual property value through groundbreaking IP strategies and management in 11 areas: automotive, electronics, medical and biotechnology, university/R&D institutions, internet and SW, semiconductor, industry, mobile communications, intellectual property transactions, individuals, and teams.

KAIST has been significantly increasing the value of the intellectual property it produces through intellectual property transactions and licensing, and therefore has been recognized as one of the most active university patent holders in the Asia-Pacific region.

“This award proved KAIST’s innovative research capabilities have led to the creation of intellectual property and technology commercialization,” said Professor Kyung Cheol Choi, director of KAIST Office of University-Industry Cooperation (OUIC). “We will focus more on strategic creation of core intellectual property to complete the vision of KAIST as a global leader.”

At the same time, KAIST received a total of 450 million KRW of running royalties from technology patents in 2018. This allowed KAIST to rank the highest in the Running Loyalty category for technology transfer institutions in the 2019 rankings of the Korea Intellectual Property Office.

Major commercializations of KAIST-born technology include Advanced Video Coding (AVC) and High-Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) video compression technologies. As of November, 44 patents have been registered by KAIST as AVC and HEVC standard patents, creating a commercial value of about 2.6 billion KRW.