Contributory Patent Infringement in Korea

Part II of this Article will first introduce the facts and decisions by the Seoul High Court and the Supreme Court in Samsung Electronics, Inc. v. Sung-Kyu Cho. Part III will examine the object and purpose of the contributory infringement doctrine, the question whether direct infringement should be a prerequisite for a finding of contributory infringement, and the relationship between contributory infringement and criminal patent infringement

Property Versus Misappropriation: Legal Protection for Databases in Korea

As a member of the international society which is now more interconnected than ever, Korea is experiencing a legal gap in the protection of databases. The commercial value of databases increased dramatically with the expanding use of computers and the Internet. As with other countries, Korea faces a choice in the legal forms of protection for databases: it can either extend the application of existing laws (i.e., patent and copyright protection) or create a new law (i.e., sui-generis database protection). In addition, Korea must choose either a property approach or a misappropriation approach for database protection. Although Korea attempted both approaches, there is still a controversy regarding which alternative will best guide Korea to prosperity in the digital age. This Essay argues that legislative proposals based on a property approach fail to cover the legal gap. A property approach has the potential to over-protect databases in Korea and negatively impact small innovators and the general public. Instead, this Essay submits that the misappropriation approach is the best alternative for the protection of databases in Korea. Unlike other countries such as the United States, Korea has not developed a misappropriation doctrine through case law or statutory provision. This lack of established law on the misappropriation doctrine points to a need for the enactment of a statutory provision explicitly prohibiting the misappropriation of databases in Korea

Patent Litigation in Korea

For the past thirty years, the substantive laws of Korea in the filed of patent protection have developed very fast so that their statutory provisions are almost the same as those of advanced countries like the U.S.A. However, the reality of patent protection in Korea is somewhat different from the statutory provisions themselves. While the reality of patent protection depends upon the practice of patent litigation, the practice in Korea illustrates several problems and faces a few challenges. 10 years ago, the Patent Court was established in Korea. Although the Patent Court has been doing its job very well in general, the relevant industry is not satisfied with its non-obviousness test. Since the concept and criteria of non-obviousness is the most important in patent litigation, the Patent Court of Korea must try and provide a more clear and certain test to the industry so that the industry or potential inventors understand what level of inventiveness is required for patent protection. Given the fact that invalidity of a patent is raised often as a defense in patent litigation, a more clear and certain non-obviousness test is essential to lower patent disputes in the future. Japan and Korea is still based on the two-tier litigation system: Although damages and injunctions against patent infringement is litigated in judicial courts, invalidity of patents should first be filed with the Intellectual Property Tribunal. The Patent Court may only take invalidity cases as a second trial court after the Tribunal. While ordinary judicial courts are not allowed to deal with the invalidity issues, the Patent Court are not allowed to deal with remedies such as damages or injunctions. Consequently, the patent right owners and alleged infringers will all have to go through two tier procedures for a long time with a lot of costs. The paper suggests that the two-tier system should now change

Criminalization of Netizens for Their Access to On-line Music

The peer-to-peer (P2P) technology and music file sharing have generated a steadily intensifying war of words and legal actions not only in the USA but also in Korea. Despite hot debates over the Napster decision, the American decision appears to have guided the world in the wrong direction: The music industries all over the world have been encouraged to bring lawsuits against P2P networks or software rather than to negotiate and issue licenses for on-line music distribution. And, also, despite substantial differences among domestic statutes on copyright status of sound recording producers, judicial courts in some countries including Korea have been encouraged to hold P2P network operators and their users as liable for P2P music sharing. Strengthened protection of copyright has been made possible partly by increasing and expanding criminal sanctions against copyright infringement. Too broad or severe criminal sanctions would, however, stifle appropriate level of exploiting copyright works and consequently contradict the policy goal of copyright law itself, i.e. promoting the advancement of science and useful arts. The same risk may apply to criminalization of netizens for their access to on-line music. Especially when netizens do not understand copyright law at a sophisticated level or when they do not regard internet access to music as copyright infringement, it would be difficult to punish such netizens as willful infringers

Polarity engineering in polycrystalline ZnO by inversion boundaries

Two distinctive polarity-engineered microstructures were obtained in polycrystalline ZnO ceramics by inducing two different types of inversion boundaries (IBs) inside individual grains to examine the effect of the different polarities on the varistor performances. The presence of head-to-head IBs induced by the addition of Sb and tail-to-tail IBs by doping Ti was directly confirmed by the characteristic geometry of the chemical etch pits. It was proposed that a consequent polarity on the grain boundary planes, which are affected by the presence of head-to-head IBs is crucial in exhibiting the superior performance of ZnO varistors.open2

The R∞ property for Houghton's groups

We study twisted conjugacy classes of a family of groups which are called Houghton's groups Hn (n∈N), the group of translations of n rays of discrete points at infinity. We prove that the Houghton's groups Hn have the R∞ property for all n∈N

Anti-Inflammatory Effects of Bangpungtongsung-San, a Traditional Herbal Prescription

Bangpungtongsung-san (BPTS), a traditional oriental herbal prescription, is widely used for expelling wind, draining heat, and providing general improvement to the immune system. In this study, we investigated the effects of BPTS on induction of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), proinflammatory cytokines, nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-κB), and mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) in lipopolysaccharide- (LPS- ) stimulated Raw 264.7 cells, and on paw edema in rats. At concentrations of 0.5, 0.75, and 1 mg/mL, treatment with BPTS inhibited levels of expression of LPS-induced NF-κB and MAPKs (ERK, JNK, and p38) as well as production of proinflammatory mediators, such as nitric oxide (NO), prostaglandin E2 (PGE2), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), and interleukin-6 (IL-6) by LPS. These results suggest that BPTS may exert anti-inflammatory effects via reduction of proinflammatory mediators, including NO, PGE2, TNF-α, and IL-6 through suppression of the signaling pathways of NF-κB and MAPKs in LPS-induced macrophages. In addition, using the carrageenan-induced paw edema assay, an antiedema effect of BPTS was observed in rats. These findings may provide scientific evidence validating the use of BPTS in treatment of patients with heat syndrome in Korean oriental medicine

The Effect of FRAND Commitments on Patent Remedies

This chapter addresses a special category of cases in which an asserted patent is, or has been declared to be, essential to the implementation of a collaboratively-developed voluntary consensus standard, and the holder of that patent has agreed to license it to implementers of the standard on terms that are fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND). In this chapter, we explore how the existence of such a FRAND commitment may affect a patent holder’s entitlement to monetary damages and injunctive relief. In addition to issues of patent law, remedies law and contract law, we consider the effect of competition law on this issue