The Korea Trade Commission under the Ministry of Knowledge Economy is set to grasp the situation regarding damage derived from infringement of intellectual property rights onto domestic companies . The commission has also decided to set the deadline for the final decision on a case of intellectual property infringement within six months to expedite the relief process as well as shorten the period required for the opening of an investigation from the current 30 days to 20 days . The Korea Trade Commission disclosed Monday that it will embark on a seven - month - long investigation starting from next month to see whether infringement of patent , utility model , trademark and design has been inflicted on local firms . Those subject to investigation are about 1 , 000 domestic enterprises that had applied for the past three years five or more items per annum for an industrial property right . The authorities ’ sweeping investigation was ascribed to the aggressive moves recently taken by advanced countries to protect their patents and the rapid increase in import of forged articles from developing countries . The ministries concerned with protection of intellectual property rights such as the Korea Intellectual Property Office and the Korea Customs Service are expected to participate in the forthcoming investigation and additionally , an advisory committee constituted of 18 members including a patent attorney , a lawyer and a law professor will be inaugurated on May 28 . The Korea Trade Commission which was established in 1987 has settled about 140 cases of encroachment on domestic firms ’ intellectual property rights . Among them is the case in November 2004 that the commission suspended import and domestic sale of Japanese Panasonic ’ s PDP products which were told to have violated LG Electronics ’ patent rights . Recently , the need for raising the status of the Korea Trade Commission has been proposed since the commission currently deals only with disputes concerning the manufacturing industry and lacks authority over other major trade issues such as the latest controversial beef dispute . [ Sun - young Park / KHS ] [ ⓒ Maeil Business Newspaper & mk . co . kr , All rights reserved ]