특허법에서 중복심판의 기준시점 -대법원 2020. 4. 29. 선고 2016후2317 판결에 나타난 특허소송의 일사부재리와 민사소송의 중복제소 금지, 기판력 제도의 관계에 관한 검토

Abstract

The Supreme Court of the Republic of Korea recently pronounced an important judgment (Supreme Court Decision 2016Hu2317 Decided April 29, 2020) regarding the base point for determining redundancy of patent trials. The Supreme Court held, in the patent trial, when the same party requested the same judgment again (hereinafter referred to as the “post-trial”) for an ongoing trial, “the prohibition of duplicative patent trial rule” should be applied based on the day on which a judgment for the post-trial (hereinafter “judgment day of the post trial”) is rendered. Therefore, if the ongoing trial has been canceled before the judgment day of the post-trial, the post-trial would be legal. Even if those who are not familiar with patent law, most lawyers who have studied civil procedure law might consider that the above conclusion is naturally drawn from patent law as well in accordance with Supreme Court Decision 97Da45532 Decided February 27, 1998, which stated that “determination on the redundancy of litigation is made on the basis of the time at which the pleadings in the fact-finding trial were concluded.” However, patent litigation is different from civil procedure law, especially with regard to the effect of judgments in that a judgment of patent litigation affects for those who were not involved in actual trials. And the Supreme Court has held that, as to patent trials, the effect of a judgment should be considered to be coming into effect at the time of the filing of the post-trial. Accordingly, the Supreme Court comprehensively reviewed the rules for redundant litigation and the force of res judicata of the Civil Procedure Act, redundant trials and the provisions of patent law. While making it clear that this is not applicable, the criteria for judging duplicate trials in patent law were applied uniformly with the criteria for judging duplicate trials in the Civil Procedure Act. I hope that studies on various issues of patent litigation are conducted going forward so as to achieve harmony with general litigation procedures while considering the characteristics of patent litigation.