산업재산권 분쟁조정제도 활성화 노력의 평가와 과제

Ending a dispute in the early stage with all means is preferred to looking into a legal attribution of blame because of a nonrecoverable loss caused by disputes, which has shined a spotlight on the application of non-litigation alternative dispute mediation procedures. Accordingly, a dispute mediation system has been implemented since 1995 in industrial property right as well. However, despite its long history, the industrial property right dispute mediation system still has a serious issue for discussion, namely, the activation of the system. Hence, it seemed worth reviewing why the activation issue still remains a valid challenge when the discussion on the activation of the industrial property right dispute mediation system has been conducted for a significant amount of time. Compared with other administrative mediation systems, the industrial property right dispute mediation system has been quite long in place since the time when the preparation of such systems itself bore great significance. Therefore, the authorities provided the systems with a structure that is not completely different to that of the legal procedure code such as the civil mediation system, while being inevitably passive in the preparation of additional systems that can maximize the merits of the above mediation procedures. From the point of this paper, such background was the reason why the discussion on the system activation was focused on how to solve the present issue, which led to an inactive debate on how to induce cases subject to be treated by mediation, producing a result of restricting the efforts for activating the system.To lift the restriction, this paper looked at potential improvements from the point of expanding the role of the Secretariat of the Industrial Property Right Dispute Mediation Committee, of easing the formal strictness, and of ensuring proper information provision.