With the recent development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, the chatbot market is rapidly expanding, and patent competition to preoccupy related technologies is intensifying. Chatbot is a combination of “Chatter” and “Robot,” a program in which AI answers questions in everyday language when a person asks questions by voice or text.

According to the Korean Intellectual Property Office on the 27th, chatbot-related patents applied to the five major intellectual property powers (IP5) such as Korea, the U.S., Japan, China, and Europe have grown at an annual average rate of 8.1% since 2011.

Applications (2011-2020: 10,766 cases) in the last 10 years are about twice as many as applications (2001-2010: 5,132) in the previous 10 years, and in particular, applications for chatbots have increased about twice as many as applications (2016-2020: 3,742 cases) in the last 5 years, accelerating.

This is because Apple’s AI chatbot “Siri,” released in 2011, received a hot response in the market, sparking competition for chatbot technology development among big tech companies, and artificial intelligence chatbot services with deep learning technology began to be used in earnest in 2017.

In terms of the nationality of applicants (2011-2020), the U.S. topped the list with 43.3% (4,667 cases), followed by China (19.9% 2,138) and Japan (17.4% 1,874). Korea ranked fourth with 13.4% (1,445 cases), while Europe ranked third with 3.6% (383).

The average annual growth rate in Korea was 16.1%, twice as high as the average of 8.1% in the five countries, ranking second after China, which showed a 49.3% increase.

It shows that the domestic chatbot market is growing rapidly after China