초록 일부
[영문]
The patent system confers temporary monopoly rights on an inventor who created an invention applicable to industry and encourages patent activities and the use of patented inventions. The ba...
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초록 전체
[영문]
The patent system confers temporary monopoly rights on an inventor who created an invention applicable to industry and encourages patent activities and the use of patented inventions. The basic purpose of the patent system is to advance the industrial growth by technical development.
Patent right as a kind of property right is apt to be involved in many disputes with the persons concerned in patent right due to its characters of the monopoly and the exclusion. This is because a patentee's and an infringer's interests on the protection range of the invention run against each other. The patentee wants to interpret his patent right as broadly as possible. So, it is very important to confirm the protection range of the invention for the preservation of the legal stability in society and the public legal trust.
The protection range of an invention is determined by claims as prescribed in the Korean Patent Act article 97. But, in order to confirm the protection range more rationally we need various standards. According to these various standards, the protection range can be adjusted. Therefore, the judge needs well-balanced knowledge about various standards and also needs to interpret the protection range correctly.
The patent system must protect the patent from infringement effected by making obvious and insubstantial changes to the patented invention and prohibit more than literal infringement; therefore, claims need a legal interpretation and it is reasonable that the equivalents to the elements written in the claims must be included in the protection range of the patent right.
This principle constitutes the judicially created "Doctrine of equivalents". Doctrine of equivalents is a theory mainly developed in American's lawsuits regarding equivalence infringement and has been accepted also in Europe and Japan. The Korean Supreme Court recently clearly indicated the doctrine of equivalents in a patent suit case. So, the doctrine of equivalents is being discussed seriously and vigorously in the academic field.
In this paper, firstly, I have introduced the protection range confirmation standard for the patent right to establish a well-balanced protection range in the trial to confirm the scope of a patent right. Next, I have analyzed historical developments and the adequate application of the doctrine of equivalents. I have also presented the necessary conditions of fulfilling the doctrine and the limit of applying the doctrine as like "Prosecution history estoppel". Finally, I have introduced the development of the doctrine by overviewing several courts' decisions in the United States and Japan. I have also introduced the recent decisions made by the Korean Supreme Court concerning the doctrine of equivalents.
I hope that this paper would help people to settle disputes by using the protection range confirmation standard for the patent right, which I have suggested in this thesis.
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