1. Multi-million dollar lawsuit was filed against global LED enterprises

A patent management company, Bluestone Innovations (herein after referred to as “Bluestone”), which was established in the Korean capital and has its head office in Washington D.C. of the USA, announced on May 26^th that they had filed a lawsuit to prevent patent infringement, with the Eastern District Court of Texas, U.S.A., against 9 foreign LED makers including Nichia and Osram. Bluestone asserts that the nine enterprises who are the targets of the lawsuit have infringed on patent rights owned by leading American enterprises who control the original technologies of the Palo Alto Research Institute and Xerox. A technology for increasing brightness and a technology for manufacturing a vertical-type LED, which are core technologies for LED development processes, are the issues this time.

2. Wake up sleeping patents through a trust

The Korea Institute for the Advancement of Technology aids recording and cancellation charges for patent trusts and provides all technology royalties with a patentee in the case where patent transfer is accomplished. Industrial-academic cooperation teams having patent applications filed after January 1, 2001 under their single name are entitled to apply for the support system, but patent applications in the name of individuals or patents granted in foreign countries do not meet requirements to apply for the support system. Industrial-academic cooperation teams using this system will receive 70% of the registration (annuity) fees of a patent and utility model for two years after royalties for the technology have been obtained as a result of a transaction involving non-utilized patents and a trust contract being concluded.

3. Semiconductor companies join forces to address “patent trolls”

According to business circles in the semiconductor field, on May 27^th, semiconductor companies including Samsung Electronics, Hynix, Toshiba, etc. which attended a meeting of the World Semiconductor Council, held at Shilla Hotel on the same date, agreed to join forces to cope with the abuse of lawsuits performed by non-practicing entities (NPE). Non-practicing entities (NPE), which do not manufacture products but have patents, have lodged 48 lawsuits against Samsung Electronics ranked the world’s No. 1 DRAM maker, 36 lawsuits against Toshiba, 24 lawsuits against Intel and 25 lawsuits against Fujitsu.

4. With regard to “자연속 愛” trademark disputes, Hwasun-gun finally declared victory in a lawsuit filed at the Supreme Court

As regards a trademark lawsuit filed by Hwasun-gun against the Commissioner of the KIPO on the grounds that KIPO’s trademark rejection is reasonable, the Supreme Court decided to keep the original decision that the decision of rejection given by the Patent Tribunal shall be cancelled.  The Patent Court made a decision in favor of the plaintiff, and subsequently the Supreme Court made a final decision that the trademark be registered. The judge panel judged that because the two marks are different from each other in acoustic feeling, and unlike “자연애” which composed of merely words, “자연속 愛” is combined with a device, and so the two marks are not similar to each other.