The Korean Supreme Court sided with Canon in Patent Infringement Lawsuits

Canon brought many legal actions against several Korean companies. Recently the Korean Supreme Court affirmed lower court decisions for the patentee Canon in printer cartridges patents. In other hand, accused infringers challenged validities of Canon’s patents but the Korean Supreme Court affirmed validity of challenged claims, too. Canon has successfully enforced his patent against local competitors.

As for damages, the Seoul Central District awarded Canon about US$14 million to an infringer company among several other infringers. The court used an interesting method to calculate the amount of Canon's damage. The patentee used an official statistic number of the government; the tax authority of the Korean government published an official data regarding an average profit ratio per each business area every year.

According to the official notices, average profits for periods of infringements were 10% for computer printer fields. Under the Korean patent law, courts have discretion to determine a moderate amount of damage to prevent non-compensation to a patentee even though the infringement is found but no sufficient evidence to prove an amount of damage exists. It eases the patentee’s burden of proof. Based on the provision, the district court computed damage of Canon’s patent infringement through the total sales of infringement x 10%. The total amount of US$14 million is a quite big number in the history of patent infringement litigation in Korea.