A U.S. supplier of patent information, products and services said Wednesday that Korea is the world’s third-largest patent-holding country after the United States and Japan.

During an awards ceremony at Korea University to recognize the naton's most “creative” researchers, Thomson Scientific said that Korea is particularly strong in semiconductor and telecommunications.

The number of patents registered internationally by Korean companies and researchers has risen sharply since 1997.

During that period, the number of general patents jumped 54 percent to 88-thousand-574, while academic patents have nearly doubled to 47-hundred-six.

Thomson Scientific honored seven Korean scientists who it said had opened “emerging research fronts.”