[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Jin-hyung] The Gwangju-Jeonnam Regional Small and Medium Venture Business Administration announced on the 21st that it has introduced a technology protection policy insurance for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to alleviate the financial burden arising from technology disputes and is recruiting SMEs to subscribe.
According to the 2020 SME Technology Protection Status Survey by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, the biggest difficulty when technology leakage and theft occur in SMEs is the financial burden due to lawsuits, and the burden is even greater for financially vulnerable companies.
Accordingly, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups introduced technology protection insurance to reduce the burden of litigation costs such as attorney fees incurred during technology disputes of SMEs and secured a new budget to support SMEs subscribing to the insurance.
To prepare an efficient insurance project, after conducting a participation recruitment process targeting general non-life insurance companies, Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance, DB Insurance, and Meritz Fire & Marine Insurance, which have extensive experience in similar policy insurance, were selected as executing insurers.
The selected insurers developed a technology protection insurance product exclusively for SMEs, and in the future, the insurers will handle tasks such as issuing insurance policies and receiving and paying insurance claims in case of accidents.
The technology protection insurance product covers up to 100 million KRW for costs related to trade secrets, patent rights, and other protected technologies through domestic courts, including ▲all costs such as attorney fees for responding to lawsuits filed by third parties (basic coverage, 50 million KRW) and ▲legal costs for filing lawsuits against those who infringe on the protected technology (optional coverage, 50 million KRW).
The coverage period can be selected from 1 year up to a maximum of 3 years to strengthen SMEs' dispute response capabilities and alleviate financial burdens due to prolonged technology disputes.
The insurance subscription target is SMEs that possess trade secrets or patent rights, and the operation method is that SMEs pay 30% of the total insurance premium, while the government supports the remaining 70%.
In particular, for certified companies such as venture companies, Main-Biz, Inno-Biz, and technology protection leading companies, an additional support of up to 10% of the insurance premium is provided to reduce the premium payment burden for SMEs.
In the future, the project will be continuously expanded by strategically promoting the support project in collaboration with local governments, technology protection-related organizations, and major industrial associations, and supporting insurance subscription for various companies.
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