우리나라와 미국의 공동발명자 인정요건 비교연구

Products of research collaborations can be protected as joint inventions. There is no article in Korean patent law except that joint inventors are jointly entitled to a patent of joint invention. Therefore, joint inventorship was studied with cases of the United States which has an article of joint inventorship. Joint inventorship analysis must be conducted on inventions disclosed in the specification, not on claims. Claims limit protectable aspects of inventions, and do not define inventions. Analysis of claimed inventions may result in erroneous judgements on joint inventorship. In chemistry distortion of inventorship could be severe when analysis is fixated on claims. A joint inventor is a contributor who conceives an invention, reduces to practice, or provides a solution for the completion of the invention. A joint inventor is a person who (1) contributes in some significant manner to the conception or reduction to practice of the invention, (2) makes a contribution to against the dimension of the full invention, and (3) does more than merely explain to the real inventors well-known concepts and/or the current state of the art. It is desirable to have a detailed guideline for joint inventorship to encourage research collaborations and to prevent related disputes.