SEOUL -- South Korea said Tuesday it would further push for intellectual property right protection on its traditional foods, launching a new website.

Launching a new website with detailed documents and research papers on 3,500 traditional foods, the state-run Korea Food Research Institute (KFRI) said the site aims at making sure patents are not given out for traditional Korean food processing techniques.

All the information meets documentation standards set by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Lee Moon-ha, head of the institute said.

According to Lee, as soon as WIPO reviews and recognizes the KFRI as internationally acceptable, the organization will start to cross-reference all future patent requests to make certain that applications do not violate food processing methods used in traditional Korean cuisine.

According to local experts, the site, as well as preventing foreign companies from using traditional food processing methods, can help South Korea attract more acknowledgements from international cuisine organizations, such as the Codex Alimentarius Commission (COCEX) and the WIPO.

South Korea has recently been deliberating on globalizing and industrializing its traditional cuisine, opening an international forum on ways to popularize its traditional food earlier in April.
                                                                                                            Source: Xinhua