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The newer the technology, the more likely it will be integrated with other technologies. One need not look far these days to find various examples of such integrated, high technology.

For example, before, automobile technology was mostly mechanical. Today, driving to our destination combines the mechanical with the electronic, forming a kind of “complex” technology. Going deeper reveals yet more complexity: the semiconductor, its research and its manufacture, a mere fraction of the electronics field, comprises physics, chemistry, materials sciences, and nanotechnologies. Nanotechnologies, a relatively recent materials technology, in turn, may be broadly applied in the fields like chemistry, materials production, electronics, and machinery. For proof of these integrated, complex technologies look no further than today’s batteries, robots, medical instruments, and bioengineered products.

This combination of high technologies can make the difference between a conventional product and a competitive one. Creating these competitive products, however, before being verified by the market, requires securing the technology.

The importance of these kinds of complex technologies has not been lost on advanced countries, which are heavily investing in basic science and source technology research. They have created science networks,centered on competitive enterprises, to develop and track the integration of complex technologies.

The Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) is no exception. To improve the quality of patent examinations for complex technologies and to keep up with these technological trends, KIPO and its Commissioner Jung-Sik Koh have been operating divisions for complex technologies in its Electric and Electronics Examinations Bureau; its Machinery, Metals and Construction Examinations Bureau; and its Chemistry and Biotechnology Examinations Bureau. These divisions are reviewing complex technologies such as semiconductors, medical instruments, batteries, biometrics, precision machines, robots, nanotechnology, and mineral ceramics.

* The concept of complex technologies and products.

1. As a product and its manufacturing procedure develop through technological innovation, and as the number of technical components in the technology increases, the product becomes more complex. Viewed through the conventional paradigm of technological innovation, continuous improvement of the technology itself, and its relationship with other technologies, necessarily becomes more complicated.

2. At some point within a high value-added complex product, it is impossible to separate product innovation from procedural innovation. Improving design fosters improved procedure, improvements to manufacturing bring about improvements in design. Such synergy is required for both quality and cost-saving.

3. Another synergy recognized in the creation of complex products is that between user and supplier. Besides user-driven technological development to meet demand, in many cases, users invest in the R&D of complex products.

4. To succeed in developing complex technologies, the key is accumulative learning, within and without the group and network.