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| TITLE | 【Syllabus of Latest Opinion】 Supreme Court Decision 2023Hu11340 Decided July 17, 2025 【Confirmation of the Scope of Rights (Patent)】 [full Text] |
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| Summary | |
| 【Main Issues and Holdings】 [1] Method of determining the scope of protection of a patented invention If a literal interpretation of claims is clearly unreasonable in light of other description of a specification, whether a restrictive interpretation of the scope of a patent right is permissible (affirmative) Whether the above doctrine likewise applies if the scope of independent claim and dependent claim is identical (affirmative) [2] Standards for determining whether an accused invention falls under the scope of a patented invention In a case where an accused invention incorporates a modified element that does not literally meet the elements described in the patented claim, legal requirements for the accused invention to be held equivalent to the elements described in the patented claim and thus fall within the scope of the patented invention, and the method used to determine the similarity in the “principle of problem solution” between the accused invention and the patented invention [3] In a case where: (a) Company A filed an action for a declaratory judgment of noninfringement against Company B, the patentee of an invention entitled “self-cleaning water purifier,” seeking a declaration that its accused invention, “water purifier with sterilizing function,” does not infringe the scope of the patented invention; (b) the Intellectual Property Trial and Appeal Board rendered a decision confirming Company A’s noninfringement, and Company B immediately sought a revocation of the decision, the case holding that the “cleaning means” of the patented invention should be construed as “the cleaning means containing a cleaning agent or sterilizing agent, diluted in water having passed through an internal filtration unit and supplied to a storage tank to perform cleaning or sterilization”; (b) the accused invention does not have equivalent principle of problem solution with the patented invention, and thus the accused invention does not fall under the scope of the patent right of the patented invention and the patent right of the invention in a dependent claim; and (c) the lower court made an error based on misapprehension of legal doctrine by determining otherwise | |
