The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, or KAIST, owns the most intellectual property among Korean institutions of higher education.

According to a white paper published by the Education Ministry, KAIST had registered a total of 12-hundred-85 patents as of December 2005, followed by Seoul National University with six-hundred-97 patents and Pohang University of Science and Technology with five-hundred-eleven.

As of December 2005, one-hundred-32 Korean universities had a total of five-thousand-15 domestic patents and seven-hundred-78 overseas patents.

However, the top 25 percent of the universities owned most of the patents.

In 2005, domestic universities spent more than two-point-three trillion won on research projects, and 87 percent of the expenditures went to science and technology.