공지된 구성요소를 치환하는 경우 발명의 진보성 판단에 관한 고찰

Determination of inventive step is the most important requirement for patentability. Korean Patent Law Article 29(2) describes "could easily have been made before the filing of a patent application by a person with ordinary skill in the art to which the invention pertains, the patent for such an invention may not be granted". The article is not complex, however, It is the most difficult to apply. Consequently, it is not possible to predict with certainty whether a given invention will meet the requirement. There are many issues on determining inventive step, such as the person skilled in the art, secondary consideration, hindsight. This paper reviews several cases related with substitution of known elements as well as the corresponding practices in the United States, EPO, and Japan, and looks for criteria determining inventive step when the known elements are substituted with others. Through out this process, this paper tries to find the way how to apply the criteria to the real cases.