he real determining values of a business in our era of knowledge-based economy are the intangible assets, such as knowledge and technology a company can own and develop. In order to adapt to and survive in our changing economic landscape of the 21st century, we must maximize the use of the existing technical resources within the company to enhance the importance of adding premium to value added products and to our intangible aspects of our business.

POSCO E&C's passion for technical development continues even today after 10 years since our foundation. We have enabled our mindset to reach the entire enterprise, the mindset to expand patent developing activities, such as implementing a policy of promoting business development and engaging in actions that help protect our technologies. As a result such undertaking, the number of patents filed for industrial property rights has been steadily increasing each year.

The first outcome of our patent filing of industrial property rights came in the form of the Construction Method for Placing Double-Layered Steel Plate Cell Structures, a work completed as a result of the validation of both the structural performance of steel sheet cell, and of its safety, as well as the research efforts relevant to the validation. These research efforts were made since April 1995 in order to have our construction method to be designated as a "new technology." And on September 4, 1995 the above construction method has been recognized by the Ministry of Construction and Transportations as a new technology. The Construction Method for Placing Double-Layered Steel Plate Cell Structures is the first construction method used in Korea for building shore protection in the development project for the 4th shore protection in Pohang, and compared to the existing large-scale structures that were made out of concrete, this method was easier to manufacture and it further reduced the schedule by more than 20%. Moreover, it had the economic advantage of having light weight structure, thus enabling its engineering construction to be used as a small-scale maritime floating crane. Likewise, using the coupling device allowed it to effectively the block sea water from coming in, which meant it could also effectively protect its neighboring sea from being polluted with contamination and damaging the environment.

Having exerted our efforts to develop the new E&C-related technologies, POSCO E&C has seen an accelerated development in our own technical engineering capacity. This is in part due to completing in total 5 research projects, which includes the new construction method of very soft ground processing through wide ranging research activities. Additional role players in the development have been the selection of new technologies and the filing of new patent applications.

In the plant sector, efforts have been made in research activities to secure our own engineering technical capacity throughout the steel plant discipline including continuous casting, mini mill, cold roll mill processing line, and wire rods. As for the civil engineering and construction sectors, SOC-relevant technical developments have been the main focus. These developments included building and construction of bridges, and harbors. This work was completed under the guidelines of specializing and developing steel structures for increasing the demand for steal materials.

In the infrastructure sector, our interests have shifted to focus on developing a variety of comprehensive technologies ranging from process control covering steel structures, and plants that include structural analysis of its safety, to environmental technologies of waste water recycling and others.

Importantly, the Geotex Grid method, a new construction method for very soft ground processing, was a methodology that allowed steel pipes on the geosynthetics to be assembled in the shape of a lattice, so that the geosynthetics and the pipes will form as one unit to resist against any changes on the ground. At that time, the Geotex Grid method had completed its patent application on May 11, 1996. In February 1996, POSCO E&C has completed the testing of the construction method at the construction site of the steel transit base at the Port of Masan. The results of its testing showed that the Geotex Grid method had achieved excellence in preventing any changes from taking place during the ground construction, which was unlike any other construction methods in existence.

In addition, POSCO E&C has developed the construction method for blast furnace pipes which prompted its application to new onsite constructions at Pohang's #2 blast furnaces, and at the Incheon's International Airport Expressway. Also developed was a low-sound, low-vibration pile method with expandable blades. Further, POSCO E&C has built the lighting tower in the Gwangyang Dragons club's soccer stadium. Its iron structure has been built by POSCO E&C as the nation's first circular steel tube structure. Its upper structure, where its lighting had been installed, was formed in the shape of refracting the lights in all directions. That shape of lights refracted everywhere has been attempted in the world for the first time, and has been recognized as a technical feat one step ahead of others.

Such emanating passion of POSCO E&C for developing new technologies has crossed the borders to reach POS Plaza in Shanghai, where POSCO E&C has applied the new slurry wall method onsite. So, when the news of such achievement was published on the Feb 19 1997 edition of China Construction Journal, China's influential technical journal in the field, it attracted the attention of local construction industry.

As a outcome of our concerted efforts in the technical development of patent applications and new technologies, as of 2004 we had filed as many as 137 cases of industrial property rights, of which 93 were patents, 15 were utility models, 10 were industrial designs, and 19 were trademarks, which translate into an average of 20 patent filings per year.