South Korea was found to be the most competitive in the field of fourth-generation mobile communication technology.

The Korean Intellectual Property Office and the Telecommunication Technology Association said Thursday that 51 percent of all patents applied for by firms in the U.S., Japan and Europe in the area of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing were submitted by South Korean companies, including Samsung Electronics.

Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing is the key technology used in Wibro, the nation's homegrown technology that provides high-speed Internet access even while the user is in motion.

South Korea also was found to be competitive in handset technology by applying for more than two-hundred related patents, far higher than the one-hundred-57 submitted by the U.S. and 51 by Japan.

However, South Korea was found to be behind the United States in the number of submitted patents related to multiple access and duplexing.