GENEVA (Yonhap News) -- A South Korean government official has been nominated for a senior position in the World Intellectual Property Organization, becoming the first Korean to rise to the agency’s higher echelon, the country’s representative here said Wednesday.

Kim Jong-an, 52, a former trademark examiner of the Intellectual Property Tribunal of Korea, was nominated to be the director for the International Trademarks Promotion in the Brands and Designs Sector of the WIPO, a specialized agency of the United Nations dedicated to a desirable international intellectual property system, according to the South Korean mission in Geneva.

While serving in the newly created position, he will be tasked with promoting the Madrid System for International Trademark Registrations established in 1891 and overseeing a series of procedures for trademark registrations, the representative said.

After passing the Korean Senior Government Examination in 1981, Kim has served in a number of government posts mostly in the Korean Intellectual Property Office and the country’s Intellectual Property Tribunal. He had worked as a Senior Program Officer in the WIPO’s Developing Countries Division for three years from 1999.

He received a bachelor‘s degree in law from Seoul National University in 1982 and a master’s in law from the University of Pennsylvania, located in Philadelphia, in 1990.

“I will strive to introduce to more developing countries the international trademark registration system, which is becoming more important in this knowledge-based world,” Kim told Yonhap News Agency.

The WIPO said it will officially appoint him to the post as soon as its administrative procedures are completed.