This is the third part to IP issues in Korea. You can read Part I here: http://betech.asia/2013/04/part-i-what-is-the-rationale-behind-ip-disputes/ And Part II here: http://betech.asia/2013/04/part-ii-ongoing-patent-battles-in-korea/ We talked about IP patent battles in Korea in the previous article. There is a recent IP agreement that caught my attention, which was between Apple and HTC. Apple v HTC Apple and HTC announced in November 2012 that they have settled their ongoing patent dispute, opting for a 10-year…

The Korea Composite Stock Price Index has also been surging over the past three days as of Thursday morning, moving up 5.80 points to 1941.38. Also, other indexes have shown South Korea is and remains as an attractive business destination, with foreign direct investment reaching $3.39 billion in 2013 Q1. This is a whopping 45% increase from 2012. The president explained her “creative economy” mantra will also apply to foreign businesses who she…

Seoul is keeping a staunch watch on any military provocation from North Korea through a close cooperation with the U.S., China, and the international community. Representatives of eBay, Google, GE Healthcare, Citibank Korea, BASF Korea, Siemens, Standard Chartered Bank Korea, Dongwoo Fine-Chem, Denso, Bank of China and S-Oil joined in the luncheon with President Park. With some representatives stating their wider investment plans for this year, the members, expressed faith in the…

This is the second part to IP disputes in Korea. Part I here: http://betech.asia/2013/04/part-i-what-is-the-rationale-behind-ip-disputes/ Samsung Electronics v LG Electronics Recently, Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics have locked horns over the eye-scrolling technology that was embedded in Samsung’s Galaxy S4 unveiled in New York earlier this month. This is LG’s stance: LG LG had rights to the eye-scrolling technology- it applied for a related patent in Korea in December 2005. LG also applied for…

Achieved a place in top 15 global economies, and has stayed there 8th in terms of ‘Ease of Doing Business’ Smartphone penetration: 97%. Internet speeds (top 3 in world for last 10 years) Population: 49.8m GDP per capita: $22,424 ($2,300 in 1980) GDP growth (2011): 3.6% Inflation (2011): 4.0% Key cities: Seoul (9.8m); Busan (3.4m); Incheon (2.5m)

Here is a list of great websites you should know about when you want to do business in Korea:             KOTRA (Korea Trade Association). http://english.kotra.or.kr/             KOCCA (Korea Creative Content Agency). http://www.kocca.kr/eng/index.html             KOVA (Korea Venture Business Association). http://venture.or.kr/kova/index.jsp             Invest Korea. http://www.investkorea.org/ikwork/iko/eng/main/index.jsp             The Korean Law…

1. Users Are Important. Success lies with the loyalty of your users, or fans. By now you should know the importance that influencers, users, and fans have to your brand. These are the people who are driving viral interactions for you naturally. You need to nurture them, keep them loving and adoring your brand. One thing you can do is give your fans a shout out every now and them. Successful startups…

*This is a 3-Part article on IP disputes. The first part talks about the rationale behind IP disputes, the second talks about current legal battles between Apple and Samsung, and the third talks about cross-licensing. For the global electronics industry in the past, patent infringement was not an issue. Ramp up the design factor, appeal to customers, create a feel that was different from other – and the software, or how much…

Is South Korea becoming more environmentally friendly? LG CNS (LG’s IT arm) will launch an electric vehicle sharing service for residents in Seoul. The service will be operated by EverOn (an affiliate of LG CNS). Drivers will be able to rent electric vehicles through them for a minimum of one hour at an hourly rate of 6,300 won (approx. $5.50 USD) and by the end of April will have 120 electric vehicles…

Following reports of office raids the day before, Samsung Display denied that it had been investigated for technology espionage against its rival LG Display. Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency – also the cyber crime unit of the country – conducted plant and office raids based on allegations that Samsung stole LG’s patented OLED technology through suppliers. “Samsung is the only company in the world possessing OLED (organic light-emitting diode) technology. Our concern is that…

Kakao – the famous operator for the mobile messenger KakaoTalk unveiled a new mobile content platform, KakaoPage. It is seeking to bolster their revenue with a new business model. We wrote about this previously, but we thought an update was necessary now that it is officially launched! The launch can be seen as the homegrown startup’s move to solidify revenue sources. It also has an incredibly large (and growing!) subscription base. The…

I read somewhere that it was gratifying for Koreans to watch Tim Cook (the Head of Apple Inc.) ‘beg’ for China’s forgiveness. Well, I guess that can be true to a certain extent, although I personally don’t agree with this. I also read somewhere that ‘apparently being the CEO of the best company in the world means to always say that you’re sorry.’ So, obviously, there’s a lot of emotions involved. It…

Two words: market saturation. According to Strategy Analytics, the Korean smartphone market growth for smartphones will slow down this year and possibly post a negative growth in 2016. The local market for smartphones is expected to grow 8% from a year earlier to around 33.1 million units this year. This marks a remarkable slowdown from an explosive 717% on-year growth in 2010 as well as a 75% growth last year. According to the…

The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (hereby ICT) held its first international meeting in preparation for the plenipotentiary conference of the “International Telecommunication Union” to be held at Busan next year. The ITU plenipotentiary conference is expected to bring together about 3,000 people from different governments, international organizations, and businesses in 193 nations. 100 representatives from 38 member states from the Asia-Pacific region attended the meeting to get global ICT…

Samsung’s “Galaxy” series was again rated as Korea’s most valuable brand in the first quarter of 2013. Brandstock, a local research firm conducted a survey and Samsung received 938 points, retaining the top spot for the second consecutive year. The supermarket chain “Emart” followed with 924 points. Samsung outstripped Nokia as the world’s biggest smartphone maker and sold more than 40 million units worldwide. Samsung controlled 30.4% of global smartphone market, surpassing…

The title just says ‘Korean community website’ because I personally do not think it is a major website. The website in question is the infamous and controversial “Ilgan Best”. Apparently, an international hacking group, Anonymous, have attacked the website. The website is humor-centered with jokes and political viewpoints. These are heavily biased, although that goes for any online community really. To give you the low-down of the event: 1. Ilgan Best came…

CoolIris CEO, Soujanya Bhumkar, has taken several recent trips to Seoul and I had the pleasure of catching up with him to find out more about what he has been up to during his visits. I had expected a press interview, with Soujanya explaining more about CoolIris’ new products, but he was much more interested in discussing the rise of entrepreneurship in Korea. He was clearly excited about the potential for Korean…

Cooliris today announced the release of the new Cooliris mobile app which offers endless discovery of friends’ and followers’ photos, and adds Dropbox to the portfolio of media sources users can seamlessly explore from the app. Cooliris has already integrated the mobile library, Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, Google+/Picasa, Twitter, SmugMug, Google Drive, Google Images, Yandex.Fotki in Russia, and Renren in China. Cooliris, which has reached the #1 iPad app in 75 countries for…

KakaoTalk launched the KakaoTalk PC version (beta test) from yesterday, 26 March 2013. You would be able to log in using your KakaoTalk ID, not your phone number. Verification would be made via phone and you would log in as usual and communicate PC to PC or PC to smartphone (they’re synchronized).

The rumor has it that the Galaxy Note 3 will come with an OLED (rumored to be ‘unbreakable’ and resistant to drop shocks) HD screens. This means that Samsung will set a new paradigm between smartphone manufacturers. What kind of shift in dynamics will there be?