1. Supreme Court “MS Did Not Infringe the Domestic Patent of Korean-English Automatic Switchover”

 

The Supreme Court Section 1 (Chief Judge: Justice Kim Neung-hwan) announced on the 8^th  day of Novemver, 2011 that it confirmed the original trial that ruled against the plaintiff in the lawsuit relating to the ‘Korean-English Automatic Switchover Technology’ patent whereby Hangul and English are automatically changed by recognizing the consonant and vowel without separately pressing the Korean-English switchover key when preparing a document by computer. The lawsuit for demanding prohibition of patent right infringement was filed by the patent holder Lee Geung-hae (55), a professor of Korea Aerospace University, and others against Korea MS, contending, “MS used the Korean-English Automatic Switchover Program without permission.” The Court ruled, “The MS’s Korean-English automatic switchover function is different in solution principle and operation effect from the ‘Korean-English Automatic Switchover Method’ patent applied to Professor Lee’s Korean-English Mixed Use Input Device.”

 

2. Korea-U. S. FTA, “Saving contents even for a moment is illegal?”

 

It was shown that the Korea-U. S. Free Trade Agreement has a provision that such an act of searching for internet news about designing and practicing a resonator for wireless power transmission or hearing songs by a streaming method is contrary to copyright law. The current copyright law does not acknowledge ‘temporary saving’ as reproduction, but once the FTA comes into effect, the users should prove by themselves that their act of using the internet did not infringe on the right of the copyright holder. This is because the Agreement acknowledged ‘temporary saving’, which is frequent in the course of using the computer, as reproduction.

 

The Agreement has provisions for extending the copyright protection period from the current 50 years to 70 years and prohibiting the act of bypassing the technical protection measure for controlling access to literary works.

 

3. Species conservation to expand to all plants from January next year

 

Six species of strawberry, blackberry, citrus, blueberry, prune and seaweed that have been excluded from the species to be conserved will be included in the species to be conserved from January 7 next year so that the species conservation will expand to all plants.

 

The Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries announced on the 10^th  day of Novemver, 2011 that the government notification was amended in accordance with the agreement that species conservation expand to all plants within ten years after this country joins the UPOV.

 

With the overall implementation of the species conservation system, the Ministry will appropriate a budget of a total of 491,100,000,000 won for the coming ten years to implement the Golden Seed Project for developing 19 species of global export strategy items.

 

4. “China ranks first of the world in the number of patent applications this year”

 

Xinhua News Agency reported that Thomson Reuter said in a report issued on the 16^th  day of Novemver, 2011 that the number of China’s patent applications increased from less than 90,000 in 2006 to 230,000 last year and estimated China will be the world-first in the number of patent applications as such an increasing trend continues.

 

It reported, however, most of China’s patent applications are domestic patents, and of the total patent applications, international patents are only 5.6%, which is far behind compared with 48.8% for the U. S. A. and 38.7% for Japan.

 

5. Removing antioxidase suppresses cancer cell growth

 

Kang Sang-won, professor of Ewha Womans University, announced on the 17^th that he confirmed the fact that removing a specific antioxidase prevents a new blood vessel from forming in the cancer tissue so as to suppress cancer cell growth. By removing an antioxidase called peroxiredoxin 2 (Prx-2), he said, the growth of a new blood vessel can be prevented in the cancer tissue.

 

Cancer sends out blood vessel growth factors for growth and transition to make a new vessel, through which it has oxygen and nutrition supplied. But active oxygen made through intense aerobic exercise not only destroys cells inside the body but also affects blood vessel growth factors to prevent a new blood vessel from forming. Inside the human body there is antioxidase to prevent the activity of such active oxygen.

 

6. Fear of “pharmaceutical industry base collapsing” on top of ‘across-the-board reduction of drug prices’

 

As the Korea-U. S. FTA ratification bill passed the National Assembly on the 22nd day of Novemver, 2011, a ‘licensed patent linkage system is introduced whereby manufacture and sale of generic drugs are deferred if the patent right holder raises an objection. According to the Agreement, if a large American drug manufacturer raises a patent infringement lawsuit for a generic drug or improved new drug produced by a domestic drug manufacturer on the basis of a foreign new drug, the licensing procedures should be immediately suspended.

 

Accordingly, the government prepared a scheme for delaying for three years the obligation of fulfilling the linkage of licensing and selling generic drugs but it was found to be inadequate. After all, there are many voices fearing that consumers have no way but to buy original drugs at high prices.