eBay 판결 이후 한국 IT 기업들의 미국 시장에서의 특허권 위험관리 전략에 대한 시사점

Abstract

In order to further a company's business objectives, it is necessary to identify the company's IP assets, and to evaluate their potential values in terms of licensing or market exclusivity. The U.S. Supreme Court's decision on May 15, 2006, in eBay Inc., et al. v. MercExchange rejected the automatic injunction rule and thus weakened one of the patent troll's leveraging tools, the permanent injunction. Instead, the Court reemphasized the application of 4 factor test to decide whether to award a permanent injunction. The plaintiff must demonstrate that it has suffered an irreparable injury, that remedies available at law are inadequate to compensate for that injury, that considering the balance of hardships between the plaintiff and defendant, a remedy in equity is warranted, and that the public interest would not be disserved by a permanent injunction. Patent trolls can be defined as companies seeking to coerce other target companies into entering into license agreements instead of litigating their patents infringement disputes in court. There have been several strategies patent trolls can take against their target companies. After eBay decision, the responsive strategies of the Korean target companies in the IT field in U.S. market can have more flexibilities due to reduced concern about U.S. courts' injunction order against Korean IT companies' products being sold in U.S. market