The 2020 International IP Court Conference an international exchange event of the professionals in the IP field consisting of five sessions which are status of international trials high technology and patent eligibility major issues in design litigation cross-border patent infringement and mock trials has been ended successfully on November 12.

In session 3 which is third program of conference sharing of opinion was accomplished about ‘Major Issues in Design Litigation’ by U.S South Korea Japan England and China’s guest speakers.

Taeksoo JUNG Patent Court of Korea high court judge. Since 2003 he has served as a judge of District Court including Seoul Central Daejeon Cheongju and Daejeon High Court. And he was a judge of Patent Court from 2012 to 2013 and was transferred to Supreme Court as a judicial researcher on IP cases in 2014. After serving as chief judge of Chungju Branch Court for two years He is currently at the Patent Court of Korea as a high court judge.

Soonmin KWON who is participated as a guest speaker serves as Judge of Patent court of Korea since 2018. He holds law degrees from Seoul National University(LL.B) was appointed as Judge in 1998 has worked as High Court Judge since 2013. He was invited as a visiting scholar at the Institute of Civil Procedure of the University of Bonn in Germany between 2005 and 2006. He served at the Office of Judicial Ethics & Inspection of the National Court Administration in 2010 and contributed to the publication of Judicial Ethics the first guidebook on the ethics of judges in Korea and co-authored Commentary of Civil law and online Commentary of Insolvency law.

Q : In your country can a computer-generated graphic design be registered as a design? If so what is the applicable legal basis and what types of graphic designs can be registered as a design? Also in your country if a computer-generated graphic design is to be registered does it need to be expressed on an article? If so what kinds of computer-generated graphic designs meet such requirement? Please provide specific examples.

A : The Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) made amendments in the Design Examination Standards to the KIPO Established Rules No. 25 on July 1 2003 to protect computer-generated graphic designs. This seems to reflect that even if a computer-generated graphic design is temporarily embodied via light emissions on the display unit such as a liquid crystal screen of an article it can be regarded as shape and color which are the morphological elements of the design and that even if relevant provisions of the Design Protection Act are not amended with an active use of partial design system a computer-generated graphic design may be sufficiently covered by the Design Protection Act. As discussed above forms that may be registered as design in Korea include Graphic User Interface (GUI) icons and Graphic Image (GI). Computer-generated graphic designs should meet the general requirements for the establishment of design and thus in order for a computer-generated graphic design to be registered it must meet the article requirement. Even a temporal embodiment on the display unit of an article can be regarded as meeting the article requirement. On the other hand when the display unit cannot be specified in an article and it is embodied by projection of light or if and when the physical display unit is not specified even if the image is temporarily embodied the article requirement may not be satisfied by a computer-generated graphic design

This conference held on November 12 2020 was held at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Seoul under the theme of Court IP and Globalization with the method using parallel online and offline to prevent the spread out of Covid 19.

Focusing on IP5 which are United States China Japan and Germany about 300 IP related professionals from 8 nations around the world participated online and offline to share and progress IP issues with various cases.

The 2020 International IP Court Conference was ended in great success raising the status of the IP international trial in Korea covering five sessions and mock trials.