The Ministry of Intellectual Property (MOIP), led by Minister KIM Yong Sun, announced that it has improved the procedures for issuing certificates that can help verify original documents of trade secrets to enhance convenience for companies, including by allowing certificates to be issued 1) electronically and 2) in a standardized English format.

The certification service is grounded in the Unfair Competition Prevention and Trade Secret Protection Act (Chapter III, Article 9-2), under which the unique digital identification value extracted from an original electronic document containing a company’s trade secret information (referred to as an "electronic fingerprint") may be registered with a designated original document certification agency. In the event of a legal dispute, the agency may issue a certificate verifying the document as the original, which can help establish the existence of the trade secret and the time at which the information was possessed.

① Previously, applicants were required to make a physical visit to a designated certification agency to obtain a certificate that verifying the original document based on its registered electronic fingerprint. MOIP, as part of its proactive administration efforts, amended the relevant rules to allow the certificates to be issued electronically, making it possible for applicants to receive them more conveniently without an in-person visit.

② Also, the certificates became eligible for Apostille in September 2025, which authenticates public documents for overseas use. To support companies’ use of the certificates abroad, MOIP provided designated certification agencies with a standardized English format for issuing the certificates.

Director General PARK Jin-hwan of the Intellectual Property Dispute Settlement Bureau stated, "We have improved the certificate issuance system so that companies can use the service more easily. Since such certificates can be used as evidentiary material in the event of a trade secret leak, we encourage more companies to make active use of them.”

Source: Ministry of Intellectual Property Public Relations > News