기술혁신과 경쟁력 강화를 위한 직무발명 제도의 개선 방향 - 일본의 직무발명제도를 중심으로 -

Abstract

The employees’ invention system is understood as a system to promote fair adjustment of profits between the employee who created the invention and the employer who provided human and material support until the completion of the invention, but the purpose of the Patent Act is to contribute to industrial development, not protection of patent holders. As can be seen, the employees’ invention system is ultimately a system for industrial development and technological competitiveness enhancement. How to determine the attribution of right to employees’ invention and the calculation of reasonable compensation is a matter to be decided according to the situation of each country in consideration of the objectives of these systems, and there are legislations of attribution of employer and attribution of inventor. Most countries take the legislative attitude of attribution of employer. Japan adopted the attribution of employer for employees’ invention in the Patent Act of 1909, and then amended to attribution of inventor in 1921, and in 2015 re-amended to attribution of employer. In Japan, when attribution of inventor was adopted, many problems such as uncertainty in securing the rights of employer, uncertainty in calculating a reasonable compensation, inadequateness in reflecting employer contribution, excessively high compensation, resulting in increased corporate risk and reduced technological competitiveness were raised. In recognition of the need to amend the employees’ invention system in terms of securing national competitiveness, various voices of related organizations related to intellectual property such as the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the Japan Intellectual Property Office, and the JIPA were presented to amend to employer-oriented legislation in 2015. The problem of compensation for employees’ invention should not be limited to the problem of the adjustment of profits between the employer and the employee, but it is a mutual problem of employees, and above all, considering the contribution of the employer and other employees to the profit creation raised from the employees’ invention it should be noted that it is possible to innovate the technology through a cycle of invention only when the institutional support that the employer can invest in the development of other technologies with confidence in the incurred profits. It is necessary to guarantee as much as possible the ownership of rights and compensation to employees so that employers and employees can autonomously decide according to the circumstances of each company. It will be said that the circumstances that led to the final amendment by actively participating in the opinion of the employer industry and the labor industry and drawing common grounds provide many implications for Korea’s future legislation.