South Korea ranks fourth in terms of the number of patents registered in the artificial intelligence sector, but an index showing the impact of the patents shows that the quality of patents from South Korea fell relatively short, according to a report, Tuesday.

The report from Clarivate Analytics and KAIST Center for Innovation Strategy and Policy says that the number of patents that South Korea registered in the AI field has reached 6,317 between 2010 and 2019, the fourth highest among the 10 countries included in the report.

The report analyzed around 147,000 patents registered by 10 countries, including China, the US, Japan, Korea, Germany, Taiwan, the UK, Canada, France and India.

China was ranked first with 81,236 registered patents, accounting for around 60 percent of all patents registered by the 10 countries during the period. The US followed China with 24,708 patents, and Japan followed with 6,754 patents.

The report, however, noted that the quality of South Korean patents in the AI sector were relatively poor, when compared with those held by the US and Canada.

According to the report’s combined patent impact index -- an analytic measure that the report used to assess how many useful patents each country holds -- South Korea holds around only 8 percent of the top 10‘s most useful patents. The CPI index for South Korea is lower than the average of the 10 countries included in the report, 14 percent.

In terms of CPI, the US was ranked first with 43 percent, followed by Canada with 26 percent.

Kim Won-joon, head of the KAIST Center for Innovation Strategy and Policy, said that state-led initiatives and investments in the AI sector could help countries achieve quantitative growths but impacts of patents may fall relatively short when compared to countries like the US, where the industries have led AI research and actual applications of AI solutions.

By Shim Woo-hyun (ws@heraldcorp.com)