The Journal of Intellectual Property (J Intellect Property; JIP)

KCI Indexed
OPEN ACCESS, PEER REVIEWED

pISSN 1975-5945
eISSN 2733-8487
Original Article

Implications of the EU Unitary Patent System and Unified Patent Court: Impact on Korea and its Strategies

Master’s Student, Department of Law, Korea University, Republic of Korea

Correspondence to Kyungseo Min, E-mail: liabang@naver.com

Volume 19, Number 4, Pages 1-23, December 2024.
The Journal of Intellectual Property 2024;19(4):1-23. https://doi.org/10.34122/jip.2024.19.4.1
Received on September 20, 2024, Revised on September 30, 2024, Accepted on December 05, 2024, Published on December 30, 2024.
Copyright © 2024 Korea Institute of Intellectual Property.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided that the article is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

Abstract

The European patent industry has reached a major turning point because of the launch of its Unitary Patent System (UPS) and Unified Patent Court (UPC). South Korea is also affected by these changes and issues such as fragmentation of patent protection and jurisdiction, problems of choice of forum, and negative effects on small businesses. This study proposes a comprehensive strategy that considers these factors to protect Korea’s patent industry and improve the competitiveness of Korean companies. Korean companies will increasingly use the UPS; therefore, appropriate responses are needed to employ it more effectively. Accordingly, measures such as strengthening dedicated personnel, appropriately using agreements, and responding to patent litigation using opt-outs were proposed at the corporate level. At the national level, it is recommended to establish a support system to strengthen the dedicated workforce of small enterprises and train European patent experts. More specific and practical actions should be developed in future studies.

Keywords

Patent industry, Unitary Patent System, Unified Patent Court, EU, Korean patent system

Notes

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declared no conflicts of interest.

Funding

The author received manuscript fees for this article from Korea Institute of Intellectual Property.

Section