특허소송의 관할집중: ‘특허권에 관한’ 사건인지 여부의 판단

Due to amendments of section 24 of the Civil Procedure Act and section 28 of the Court Organization Act, a case related to a patent right is exclusively handled by five first instance district courts and by the second instance Patent Court. Because of such a jurisdiction consolidation system, it is very important to determine whether a case is related to a patent right or not. After conducting textual interpretation, legislative intent interpretation and purposive interpretation, this paper found that the patent right related case shall be “broadly” interpreted. This paper comparatively analyzed subject matter jurisdiction of several countries, such as the U.S.A., Germany, China, Japan, Switzerland, and based on such analysis, found that such countries also broadly interpret patent related cases. A case demanding remuneration on an employee invention shall be subject to jurisdiction consolidation, because it is on consideration against transfer of “the right for a patent” and the right is corresponding to a patent right. A case relating patent license agreement shall also be subject to jurisdiction consolidation, because it is on a promise not to exercise the “patent right”. This paper, in addition, proclaimed that a case on preliminary injunction and a case requesting remuneration based on application publication should also be subject to jurisdiction consolidation. Considering it is at early stage to operate the jurisdiction consolidation system, this paper suggested some relevant issues which would be raised in the near future.