RDA's product commercialization success rate only in the 40% range; performance management needed

【Financial News, Jeonju = Reporter Kang In】 Calls have been made for stronger performance management to ensure that technology transferred by the Rural Development Administration leads to actual products and revenue.
That is because the rate at which transferred technologies are successfully turned into products or services has remained in the 40% range for five years.
According to Rural Development Administration data released on the 14th by Yoon Jun-byeong, a lawmaker from the Democratic Party of Korea, the agency filed 2,032 patent applications and registered 1,536 patents from 2021 through 2025.
The number of technology transfer contracts exceeded 1,000 every year.
However, results in turning the transferred technologies into products or services after contracts were signed remained meager.
The RDA's technology commercialization success rate, calculated by comparing the number of successful product and service commercializations with the number of paid technology transfers, was 43.1% in 2021, 43.3% in 2022, 41.9% in 2023, 40% in 2024 and 40.6% in 2025.
There have also been cases in which the technology went unused even after contracts were signed. In the previous year alone, more than 300 contracts did not lead to actual use of the technology.
In particular, because RDA data alone make it difficult to verify sales or other sales-related details after products based on transferred technologies are launched, calls have been made to examine each stage of the process, from patent applications and technology transfers to commercialization and revenue.
Lawmaker Yoon Jun-byeong said, “It is a meaningful achievement for the Rural Development Administration to file many patents and sign technology transfer contracts, but the share of technologies that actually lead to products or services has remained in the 40% range for five years.” He urged the agency to “strengthen post-contract support and performance management so that companies can use the technologies transferred to them to make products and generate revenue.”


[email protected] Kang In Reporter