Technology Trends Related with the Natural Dyeing by Patent Analysis

특허분석을 통한 천연염색기술의 현황

The trends of patents related to natural dyeing were examined in order to guide the development of natural dyeing into a high value-added technology. Total 181 patents data provided from KISTI were analyzed and following results were drawn. Korea had the overwhelming number of patents related to natural dyeing over Japan or United States of America from 1970 to 2007. In case of domestic, the number of patent applications were heavily focused on the metropolitan area in 1990's, but started to increase in the Honam region and Youngnam region in the first half of the year 2000 which indicated that the researches and the developments of natural dyeing were very active. In the case of foreign countries, most of their patent applications comes from the corporation such as a company while the number of patents applications from individuals overwhelms that of corporation in South Korea. Also, more of individuals' patent applications were denied than corporations' patents applications. The vegetable dye, a type of dyestuff which is a research subject for patent application, had the most research done above all other dyestuff.