Enforcement of the Revised Patent Act for 'Realization of Compensation Amount'

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] A legal measure has been established to improve the method of calculating damages for patent holders, maximizing the effect of the punitive damages system.

The Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) announced that the partial amendment to the Patent Act containing this content will be enforced from the 10th.

The core of the amended law is to allow damages to be awarded for the sale of products by patent infringers exceeding the patent holder's production capacity.

Provided by the Korean Intellectual Property Office

For example, previously, if the patent holder's production capacity was 100 products and the infringer actually produced 10,000 products, damages could not be properly awarded for the 9,900 products exceeding the patent holder's production capacity.

The problem arising here is that the existing method of calculating damages by limiting it to the patent holder's individual production capacity range provides an opportunity for abuse in rights infringement.

In the actual market, the logic that it is more profitable to infringe the rights and then compensate damages based on the patent holder's production capacity rather than properly concluding a license agreement to use the patented technology was widespread.

The amended law resolves this unreasonable issue that has been maintained so far. It allows the patent holder to receive recognition of damages by calculating a reasonable royalty for the previously unacknowledged 9,900 products.

This calculation method is also recognized in major advanced patent countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Japan.

However, Korea is the only one among the five advanced patent countries (Korea, the United States, Europe, China, Japan) to codify both the calculation method and triple damages in law.

Through this, KIPO emphasizes that in Korea, it will be possible to calculate damages for all products sold by patent infringers, and if intentionality is recognized in the infringement process, damages of up to three times can be imposed.

Jung Yeon-woo, Director of the Industrial Property Protection Cooperation Bureau at KIPO, said, “The enforcement of the amended law will have the effect of strengthening civil sanctions in conjunction with the ‘triple damages system’ implemented since last year,” adding, “Furthermore, KIPO plans to join efforts to introduce a ‘Korean-style evidence collection procedure’ to enhance the effectiveness of calculating damages for intellectual property infringement during legal disputes.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.