Lee & Ko Seminar on 'Changes and Relevant Remedies in the Intellectual Property Environment'

On December 1, 2022 (Thursday), Lee & Ko held a seminar on ‘Changes and Relevant Remedies in the Intellectual Property Environment.’

The expansion of remote/non-contact lifestyle has accelerated changes in industrial structures, subsequently resulting in various changes being detected in intellectual property laws. Regulations for big data protection were recently established in the Unfair Competition Prevention and Trade Secret Protection Act, and the Korean Intellectual Property Office (“KIPO”) has implemented examination guidelines for virtual goods such as those in the Metaverse. Recently, the KIPO invalidated the patent application for which an AI was indicated as the inventor. In this seminar, Mr. Heon Lee, Mr. Jaewoo Kwak, and Mr. Junghwan Maeng of Lee & Ko participated as speakers presenting on the changes and relevant remedies in the intellectual property environment, which were followed by question and answer sessions.

In the first session, Mr. Heon Lee discussed ‘Latest IP Case Law Trends,’ where he presented on the latest major court decisions and trends regarding petitioner’s identification and respondent’s practice of compared invention in a scope confirmation trial, assertion of the grace period for exception to disclosure in divisional applications, distinctiveness of composite trademarks, and data collection through web crawling.

In the second session, discussed ‘Burden of Proof of Patentability and Selection Inventions.’ Here, Ms. Kim emphasized that whereas a selection invention is one that is included in a prior art and its novelty should be denied, there are exceptional circumstances where novelty/inventiveness is not denied when there is heterogeneity/remarkability of effect for the entire selection, and the burden of proving the existence of such exceptional circumstances is reverted to the patentee.

In the third session, Mr. Jaewoo Kwak discussed ‘Metaverse: Changes and Corporate Response to the New Virtual Fusion Platform.’ Here, Mr. Kwak explained the precautions for concluding a Metaverse-related contract and the new KIPO prosecution guidelines for virtual products for the protection of trademark rights in the Metaverse. Mr. Kwak also explained the IP issues relating to virtual influencers, such as copyrights, trademarks, and publicity, which are the latest topics in the entertainment/advertisement industry.

In the fourth session, Mr. Junghwan Maeng discussed ‘Tech Company’s Computer Program Development and Precautions for its Use.’ Here, Mr. Maeng introduced various types of software disputes and issues that program developers and users must know about, emphasizing the importance of always recognizing the possibility of copyright disputes in the process of using software and establishing remedies in advance.