특허권 공유의 성립 및 법적성질과 관련된 제문제

Abstract

In a developing society, co-owner inventions and thus, co-ownership of patent rights are increasing rapidly. The provisions for the co-ownership of patents have not been modified since patent law was enacted in 1961 even though there has been various changes in the industrial environment. The Korean Intellectual Property Office however, has only individual clauses which suggest what is necessary to be a co-owner of patent rights. Therefore, we need to make general clauses to solve these problems. Furthermore, we use Joint Tenancy of U.S.A. as a term for the co-owner of patent rights. There are some problems with this, because it does not mean various characters are included in patent right co-ownership. It is therefore important for us to change this term so that co-ownership or joint ownership includes various characters. Patent right does not control physically like some material objects. It does not need to possess anything for controlling. Therefore, Patent law restrains from transferring patent rights to one co-owner without permission of the other co-owners. This also causes a problem because we need to solve at what point in time disputes occurred between co-owners, and from when relations ceased. Therefore, the patent law clauses need to be changed to solve these problems. Furthermore, an important issue that needs to be addressed is whether one of the co-owners in a patent can maintain an action for an infringement when he appeals in the Court of Appeal without the join of the other co-owners.