국가연구개발사업의 기술료제도 개선방안

A Study on the Royalty System of National R&D Project

Today, advanced countries are establishing and pushing forward with a science and technology policy for national competitiveness through technological innovation. Korea is not an exception. In 2013, the government and public funding for research and development is 14.2 trillion won. It accounts for 24% of total R & D expenses of 59.3 trillion won. Accordingly, overall scientific and technological achievements are increasing, but in the economic profit performance, it is lower than other countries. One of the reasons is that scientific and technological achievements of the national research and development projects are not effectively spilled over into the industrial circles. Also It also can be attributed to the insufficiency of technology transfer and that of commercialization infrastructure, immaturity of technological innovation and that of cultural and legal systems. Regarding the royalty system of national research and development projects, they generally point out the issues on the collection and use of intellectual royalties. First, in the collection of royalties from professional organizations, they only collect from profit-making corporations without levying non-profit corporation on it. It is possible for the non-profit company to do business with a direct technology owned by a technology holding company and the trend is now expanding. Therefore, It is needed to unify this standard of the regulations by the abolishing of collecting of royalties from the profit-making companies. Next, it is claimed that the use of the collected royalties owned by research and development institutions. This can be seen as the restriction of the private property rights and autonomy. It is also can be considered as double levying and reverse discrimination to the participating researchers when they demand the use of the collection of royalties from the non-profit corporation be and accumulated on the collects a royalty on intellectual property-related expenses. They also insist that the ratio of reward is relatively excessive. Therefore it is desirable to construct a virtuous system of research and development by entrusting with the use of royalties to the institutions owing the research and development or by limiting the maximum rate of compensation. Finally, concerning direct commercialization of technology through the non-profit corporations, the compensation of the participating researchers is institutionally guaranteed. But in reality, it is almost impossible to compensate them, which is not enough to be a motivation to induce active participation of the researchers in that technology commercialization. A model is presented to solve this problem by strengthening the researchers’ participation by amending the related laws on behalf of a not-for-profit corporation involved in the technology holding company by way of compensating the institute directly or by the owning shares of a subsidiary company. However, they see that there is a problem concerning the compensation owing to the principals of the commercial law in this regard. The desirable solution to this issue should be that it reflect the spirit of the national research and development industry and the system of the technology holding company. It also should comply with the legal principles of the global economic and commercial Law.