On April 3, 2014, the Korean Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) signed a Memorandum of understanding (MOU) for the creation and utilization of IP rights (IPRs) in the agriculture, food, and seed industries.

Given that Korean seed businesses with relatively weaker capabilities for developing plant varieties and capital are competing with multinational corporations in both the domestic and foreign markets, the Korean government is pursuing the Golden Seed Project to foster future growth engines by incorporating cutting-edge bioscience into seed industries.

* The global market for seed industries amounts to about USD 45 billion (about KRW 48 trillion) and is growing by 5% annually.
* Golden Seed Project: developing high value-added seeds that will revolutionize the industry, and investing approx. KRW 500 billion over a total of 10 years (2012 – 2021) in order to establish Korea as one of the world’s top ten powerhouses in the seed industry by 2021.

The ministry collaborated with KIPO in comprehensively enhancing working cooperation, from state R&D to the consolidation of IPRs, and focusing on 50 key technological fields to create new agriculture growth engines and to carry out the Golden Seed Project for the development of high value-added seeds.

Both government agencies prepared detailed cooperative measures for extensive working-level discussions that would help resolve problems within the industry and serve to beneficially impact agriculture and seed-related enterprises.

Main projects for cooperation:

① Support the creation of IPRs in the seed industry
- Harmonize the patent rights system with the system of plant variety protection rights;
- Strengthen work sharing in relation to examination;
- Build a joint network for providing consultation on seed IPRs; and
- Enhance policy cooperation between KIPO and the ministry’s Korea Seed and Variety Service in order to share information on patents, seeds and plant varieties.

② Foster a conflation of IPs with R&D in the agriculture and food industries
- Devise and support strategies for customized patent acquisition (IP-R&D) by dispatching patent strategy experts to public R&D centers for the purpose of aiding in the consolidation of profitable IPRs;
- Enhance cooperation between the Korea Intellectual Property Strategy Institute and the Korea Institute of Planning & Evaluation for Technology in Food, Agriculture, Forestry & Fisheries to better conflate IPs with R&D.

③ Support the commercialization of IPs in the agriculture and food industries
- Enhance cooperation between the Korea Invention Promotion Association and the Foundation of Agricultural Technology Commercialization & Transfer to streamline IP financing in regard to IP valuation and commercial transactions.

At the MOU signing ceremony, Agricultural Minister Dong-phil Lee stated: “Cooperation between government agencies to foster commercialization of R&D results and to enhance our capacity for creating seed IPRs will greatly aid Korea in dominating the seed industry, thereby boosting Korea’s agricultural competitiveness.” Similarly, KIPO Commissioner Young-min Kim said, “Strategically consolidating IPRs is the first step toward developing the agricultural and food industries, including the seed industry.”