Database

The Intellectual Discovery Fund is a state owned patent pool that aims to stimulate emerging intellectual proterty business in Korea. Against a subscription to join, the companies receive licenses for the patents owned by the pools in differente areas, which include telecommunication sector, software, semi-conductors and medical devices.

In the patent application process, it is mandatory for non-residents to appoint a Korean patent administrator by power of attorney. However, a national of a country with which Korea has made a treaty or convention arrangement can be exempted from such requirement.

The Korean court ruled that Samsung should stop selling Galaxy SII, Galaxy Nexus and Galaxy Tab 10.1 because of infringing the Apple's bounce-back patent. The court also ruled Samsung did not infringe Apple's other software patents, including slide-to-unlock or its patents on product and packaging design.

The Seoul Central District Court ruled that Apple had infringed two Samsung technology patents.

Currently, Korea prohibits foreign satellite service providers from selling services (e.g. transmission capacity) directly to end-users without going through a company established in Korea. Given the current investment restrictions in place and the fact that establishing a local presence may not be economically justified, this prohibition significantly restricts the ability of foreign satellite service suppliers to compete in the Korean market.

Publishers of internet newspapers or internet news services (defined as electronic publications that continuously carry news articles from newspapers, internet newspapers, foreign news agencies, broadcasts, periodicals) must be registered with local authorities at the location of the head office of the publisher in accordance with the Law on Promotion of Newspapers and its Enforcement Decree.

In order to provide internet multimedia broadcasting services, an approval of the Broadcasting and the Communication Committee is required (Art. 4 of the Internet Multimedia Broadcasting Business Act).

The Korean Foreign Investment Promotion Act requires reporting investments made by foreigners when acquiring already existing or newly issued stocks in Korean companies (Art. 5-8).

There is a notification requirement for cross border mergers and acquisitions in the telecommunications market.

There are no pre-established screening mechanisms for investment. However, the national government has a right to decline a foreign investment if there is clear evidence that this investment pose a threat to the national security or public interest. Specific sectors over which the authorities have power to oversee and prevent foreign investments include telecommunication services.

There are discriminatory minimum capital requirements against foreign investments in place. The minimum capital requirements which apply to subsidiaries is 100 million KRW (approx. USD 90,253), but such requirements do not apply to branches or liaison offices.

Internet newspapers are likely to be subject to the same foreign investment restrictions as other newspapers. According to these restrictions, foreign entities and organizations are not allowed to own 50% or more of a newspaper publisher. Furthermore, USTR reports that foreign investment is limited to 20% for multi-genre or news-focused internet multimedia content operators and signal transmission network business operators.

Foreigners are allowed to own up to 100% of non-facilities-based telecommunications services. However, a foreign government or foreigner is not allowed to acquire more than 49% of the total issued shares of a facilities-based service supplier of public telecommunications services.

According to Art. 9 of the Capital Market and Financial Investment Services Act, a corporation of which the largest shareholder is a foreign government or a foreigner, is considered as a foreigner when the acquired shares exceed 15%.

The Korean government requires the use of locally developed technical standards for government procurement. For example, rather than utilizing internationally developed cryptographic standards, the Korean government has made mandatory the Korea-developed “ARIA” cryptographic standard for Internet Protocol (IP) telephony.

Although Korea is a signatory to the WTO Government Procurement Agreement (GPA), its coverage schedules do not include "telecommunications related services" (CPC 754) and only partially include "telecommunications services" (CPC 752) and "computer related services" (CPC 84), which are important services sectors for digital trade.