복수구성의 특허발명에 대한 직접침해 판단 기준: 대법원 2019다222782, 2019다222799 판결 기준

This study proposes an integrated standard for harmonizing the judgment criteria of the Supreme Court Decisions 2019Da222782 and 2019Da222799 (the subject decisions) and appellate court decisions, which remain valid because of the partial dismissal of appeals in the subject decisions regarding patent infringement judgments for multi-component inventions. Both the subject decisions and appellate courts require that the invention be finalized (or disposed of) by a single entity and that the invention's functional effects be realized solely through component production. However, the differences in the subject decisions' requirements for "extremely minor assembly/processing" and the appellate court's requirements for "no assembly/processing" leave room for interpretation. This study categorizes component combinations into three categories: (i) no additional processing/assembly required, (ii) cases where additional processing/assembly is required but is extremely minor, and (iii) cases where additional processing/assembly is required and is not trivial. For each category, the existence of direct infringement is determined by applying the legal principles of the subject decisions or appellate courts. These criteria harmoniously integrate the requirements of the two judgments, and their applicability has been confirmed through various case analyses.