메타버스와 산업재산권의 법적 쟁점: 가상공간의 보편성(universality)과 특허독립 및 속지주의 원칙에서의 문제점

This article was originally presented at the Lawyer’s Conference of Korea held on Oct. 28, 2022. It dealt with some issues focusing on the jurisdiction for infringements of intellectual property rights, such as patent, copyright, trademark and design patent etc., in the metaverse. The metaverse is not a real world but a virtual world which connect over the world without any border. The legal issues of the metaverse resemble the issues of the virtual space when the internet became available to the commercial use of the civilians. Traditionally, the intellectual property law has based on the principle of territoriality and independence of patent, then each state operates the intellectual property law system independent from other states. However the infringement of intellectual property right in the metaverse occurs not in the real world but the virtual world. The borders of each state and territoriality do not exist. Therefore the law based on the territoriality cannot apply to the metaverse. The amendment of the Korea Act on International Private Law, the law of international conflict, provide the Article 4(2) which expressly stipulates the doing business jurisdiction. I review the doing business jurisdiction under the U.S. case law and examine the application of the doing business jurisdiction and the governing law to the metaverse activities under the Art 4 (2).