When patent infringement transcending borders is committed by multiple entities Koreas stance about obligation of infringement
Korea various debate is being conducted in the academic without established precedent
Heeyoung JEONG Judge Patent Court of Korea
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.
Share of opinion between Germany China U.S.A Japan and Koreas guest speakers was made about ‘Cross-border Issue in IP Infringement in the session 4 that is 4th program of conference.
Heeyoung JEONG judge who participated in the field has been serving as Judge of Patent Court of Korea since Feb 2019. She was appointed as Judge to Seoul Eastern District Court in 2009. She has led her career as a judge at Daejon District Court Suwon District Court and Patent Court. Before the appointment she worked as a patent attorney with several patent law firms from 1997 to 2001 2005. She holds a bachelor’s degree(1996) in Biochemistry from Yonsei University.
Kwangnam KIM judge who participated in the field has served at a Daegu district court Suwon district court since being appointed as a judge from 2010. He graduated at department of law in 2005 from Yonsei University and received an LL.M. Law & Technology Certificate from Berkeley Law School in 2017. He did fellowships in the U. S. California Superior Court and the U.S. Federal Court Northern District of California in 2017.
Q : Assuming that all the acts of practicing a patent registered in your country take place within the territory of your country if the patent is infringed by multiple entities who will be liable for the infringement among the multiple entities? Please introduce judicial precedents or relevant discussions.
A : In this regard there are various discussions in academia such as ① Viewing only one of the multiple entities as the sole infringer ② Viewing all of the multiple entities as joint infringers and ③ Trying to resolve the matter as indirect infringement sole infringement or joint infringement depending on specific issues. Meanwhile it does not seem that any established judicial precedents concerning this exist yet and some of the lower courts have ruled as follows.
Seoul High Court Decision 2001Na42518 dated February 10 2003: It was held that B was assigned to perform the process of steps 2 through 4 for the process invention consisting of 5 steps according to As request B produced the desired quantity of what A asked for and delivered the outcome to A only and in view of which in order for B to perform the above steps according to As request it should be viewed such that A practiced the patented invention at issue and even if it were not the case A is the person who instructed Bs act and thus was determined to be liable as a joint offender with B.
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.
Kwangnam KIM Judge Patent Court of Korea
2020 International IP court conference commemorative photo
The front view of 2020 International IP Court Conference venue
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