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.

Indirect Infringement - Contributory Infringement

Korea does not have inducement clause within the Korean Patent Act. Thus, an inducement is outside the indirect infringement stipulations under the patent law. However, if one actively induced someone to infringe the third party patent, the active inducer might assume responsibilities for torts under civil law.

There is a specific provision regarding contributory infringement in the Korean Patent Act. Section 127 of the Patent Act stipulates that the act to make or use a non-staple part to construct a patented invention can amount to infringement of a patent right. According to the Supreme Court, a patentee assumes burden to prove that an alleged product is only for practicing the patented invention and is non-staple. In case the accused person is found to have knowledge of infringing behavior; commits a contributory act for direct infringement; and the accused product has no substantial non-infringing uses of the accused products, the accused person is liable for contributory infringement. The liability is the same as a direct infringement.