Patent Offensives
Korean corporations are having headaches, regardless of their size, due to patent lawsuits filed by foreign companies with the intention of preventing market penetration. Experts are pointing out that Korean companies have to come up with countermeasures against the ill-intentioned litigation.
According to industry sources, a total of 556 patent suits were raised against domestic companies by foreign ones between 2008 and late May last year. 464 out of them were against big businesses. “In fact, exact statistics are rarely available because the details of a lawsuit can be confirmed only by the concerned parties,” said one of them, adding, “However, it is sure that the number has snowballed so far, and will continue to do so in the future.”
Recently, a U.S. company filed a design patent infringement suit against a Korean kitchen utensil manufacturer for very petty and widely-used items. The latter asked for a confirmation trial with the Korean Intellectual Property Tribunal as well. The problem is that the sale of the products is unlikely to be smooth as long as the suit continues. The number of similar such cases is said to be countless.
“The number one purpose of all patent lawsuits is to prevent rivals’ market penetration, and more and more companies seem to be making ill use of them these days,” said representative patent attorney Jeon Jong-hak at Kyong-Eun Patent & Law Office. He continued, “Still, it is also true that Korean companies are inviting such lawsuits by exporting imitated products.”