Source: The Korea Herald
Date: 2009. 11. 17

One out of five Korean companies said they had been mired in a patent dispute within the last three years, an industry survey released yesterday showed.
Thirty-three percent of the companies said they incurred losses even if they won a dispute, according to the poll conducted by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry on 1,001 companies nationwide.

Of the total, large companies accounted for 31.2 percent, while small and medium-sized companies made up 19.3 percent.

The poll found that 22.8 percent of the respondents were currently in a patent dispute.

Those companies that reaped post-dispute benefits, either directly or indirectly, made up 26.5 percent of the respondents. But as many as 58.9 percent of them said they incurred losses after a dispute.

Most of the cases involved a battle with local companies, making up 69.9 percent, while multinational opponents made up 39.8 percent. Of the cases with local firms, 94.3 percent of them involved rival companies.

Multinational firms were mostly from the United States, which were cited in 64.4 percent of cases, followed by European firms with 35.6 percent and then Japanese companies with 26.7 percent.

Concerning the reasons behind the lawsuits, 58.8 percent cited the technologies applied on their leading products. This means great potential for significant losses should the case turn out unfavorably, the survey underlined.

Of the technology-related cases, 15.5 percent featured "core production technologies," while 14.2 percent involved "technologies under development for new products."

The survey, however, indicated that there were more severe patent dispute cases involving fields benchmarked as new economic growth engines, such as environmentally friendly and bio-related technologies, than in larger industries.

As many as 74.2 percent of the respondents said they expect corporate battles to intensify in the area of future growth engines, while only 12.9 percent projected a dissipation.

"The activity of patent disputes experts from overseas is becoming more robust here, as they seek for the growing opportunities in patent wars," the KCCI report said.

It noted that getting involved in any lawsuit is unwelcome for a company, as it imposes legal costs, while a protracted case can threaten to pose severe loses on a company's business.

"A company should always be taking preemptive measures in case of any unforeseen challenges by thoroughly understanding the position of their technologies and patent rights through expert advice," the KCCI advised.