Q:

Why is North Korea so active in Intellectual Property-related conventions?

North Korea is a poor, communist and very isolated country, that is not very active on the international stage (except when it comes to nuclear weapons). It therefore is also not party to a large number of multilateral conventions. 
North Korea is however party to a significant number of treaties of the WIPO (World Intellectual Property organization) (see here. This includes the Patent Law Treaty (since last month), the Lisbon System ("appellations of origin"), the Hague system (designs) and the Madrid System (Trademarks). Especially the Lisbon system has not many members, which makes the move of North Korea all the more surprising...
My question is: why does North Korea choose to give priority to adhering to these conventions?

A:

North Korea may be looking to replicate the success of South Korea. The south changed from a poor agricultural economy to one of the wealthiest countries in the world based on a ‘creative economy’ in less than 50 years. This may not seem possible to us given the countries relations with the rest of the world. However, this doesn't mean that people within North Korea may not have a very different view of what is possible in the future.
North Korea’s Kim Il Sung University made this statement when it setup a intellectual property organization, “The first aim is to promote creative activities of creators and developers by commercializing various forms of creative works and boosting the distribution and utilization [of the products]” [NK News]

