As the international community prepares to celebrate the 2015 World Intellectual Property Day on Sunday, South Korean lawmakers, intellectuals and high-level officials on Thursday vowed to step up efforts to strengthen IP protection by declaring the nation’s own inaugural Intellectual Property Day.

The World Intellectual Property Association of Korean Practitioners, launched by the Science Ministry in 2013, held a ceremony at the National Assembly to establish this new day, which aims to promote and move forward measures to protect IP.

“South Korea is among the top five IP powerhouses in the world, alongside the United States, Germany, China and Japan and has immense potential for further growth,” said National Assembly Vice Speaker Chung Gap-yoon, also the head of a new organization launched to establish Korea as an intellectual hub for IP protection.

Chung emphasized Korea’s potential to grow as a center of international intellectual property protection, particularly in Northeast Asia, stating that Korea has a competitive edge against its neighbors ― “Japan is highly nationalistic” whereas “China still takes orders from the top government,” according to the lawmaker.

As the number of patent applications in the world surpassed 2.6 million in 2013, South Korea was fourth among the top five patent offices which together received 80 percent of all applications, according to a 2014 report by the World Intellectual Property Organization.

“Though Korean companies own many excellent forms of intellectual property, they are reluctant to bring patent issues to domestic courts,” Chung added, emphasizing the need to establish a dependable court system in the country to oversee patent, copyright and trademark issues.

Amendments to the Court Organization Act to strengthen and better systemize patent courts in the country are currently underway, according to the Saenuri lawmaker Thursday.

“Korea must work toward fostering more experts (on IP protection), expediting patent trials and proving to related actors that the (Korean legal system) can effectively protect their intellectual property rights,” he said.

The United Nations defines intellectual property as “creations of the mind, such as inventions; literary and artistic works; designs and symbols, names and images used in commerce.”

Intellectual property is protected through patents, copyright and trademarks, which enable people to earn recognition or financial benefit from what they invent or create.

The theme of this year’s U.N. World IP Day on Sunday is “music.” It will be a day to “‘get up, stand up, for music’ ― to ensure that our musicians get a fair deal, and that we value their creativity and their unique contribution to our lives,” said WIPO’s Director General Francis Gurry in a celebratory message.

By Sohn Ji-young (jys@heraldcorp.com)