earticle

영어

The Korea Patent Court was established on March 1, 1998 to review the decisions rendered by the Korea Patent Appeal and Trial Board. Since its establishment, the court has played important roles as a kind of social infrastructure for the developments of science and technologies in Korea. Five years has been passed since its establishment, and I believe that now is the time to review the roles that the court has played. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to review the roles that the court has played and the problems that the court has suffered, and to suggest my opinion to improve the present system for the developments of science and technologies. For this purpose, in reviewing the roles of the Patent Court, I approached the matters, not simply from theoretical legal aspect, but from practical aspect observing the Patent Court as a tribunal to resolve the disputes concerning science and technologies. I also tired to compare the system of this court to those courts in other countries established for the same or similar purposes, and to provide suggestions to improve the present system from the aspect of legislation policy. In this study, I firstly observed the roles that such courts as specialized in industrial property matters should play, secondly reviewed the roles that our Patent Court has played during last five years, thirdly tried to point out the systematic problems that the Patent Court has held since its establishment, and fourthly to improve the present Patent Court system, suggested to introduce the technical judge system in order for the disputes to be reviewed from scientific or technical view points, and to introduce unification of jurisdiction to unify the appellate level jurisdiction for the cases of the infringement matters on industrial property rights to the Patent Court. As conclusion of this study, I strongly emphasized the necessity that the Congress should pass as soon as possible the pending bill for the revision of the Act of Court System to unify the appellate level jurisdiction for the cases of the infringement matters on industrial property rights to the Patent Court.