Jung Jinuk Proposes Three Bills to Prevent Repeated Infringement of SMEs' Original Technologies

Establishing Implementation Monitoring Standards
Following Final Rulings on Technology Infringement

Jung Jinwook, Member of the National Assembly

On February 11, Jung Jinuk, a National Assembly member from the Democratic Party of Korea representing Gwangju Dongnam-gap, sponsored three amendment bills, including the Patent Act, the Utility Model Act, and the Unfair Competition Prevention and Trade Secret Protection Act, to allow the authorities to check whether court rulings on technology theft by large corporations are actually being implemented even after the judgments are handed down.

Assemblyman Jung stated, "The core of these amendments is to specify in each law a 'post-monitoring' system that allows the Intellectual Property Office to directly verify and inspect whether the rulings are being implemented after injunctions are issued in technology theft cases, so as to block situations where the offending company only complies with the ruling in form, or exploits the stolen technology by modifying or circumventing it."

Assemblyman Jung had strongly raised the issue of technology theft from small and medium-sized enterprises during the comprehensive audit of the National Assembly’s Trade, Industry, Energy, SMEs, and Startups Committee in October last year.

At that time, Assemblyman Jung pointed out an institutional blind spot in which no substantive post-management was carried out even after judicial decisions, by presenting a case where Kolon Benit, a large corporation that carried out a public institution project, used core technology obtained from a partner small and medium-sized enterprise, repackaged it as its own in-house development outcome, and was later found liable for copyright infringement in a civil lawsuit.

Assemblyman Jung said, "Even if they manage to win a lawsuit, victim companies have lamented that 'nothing has changed despite winning the case' because there is no way to verify whether the infringement has actually stopped after the ruling," and pointed out that "this structure itself is a cause that makes repeated technology theft possible."

Assemblyman Jung said, "The issue of technology theft by large corporations is a serious problem that undermines not only the survival of victim small and medium-sized enterprises but also the entire innovation ecosystem," adding, "These amendments are meaningful in that they establish a minimum safety device under which the state takes responsibility for conducting checks even after the court rulings."

Assemblyman Jung emphasized, "Patent, utility model, and trade secret infringements should not be treated as separate, individual issues, but should be grouped together as the same problem of technology theft so that a consistent post-management framework can be built," and added, "I will do my utmost throughout the legislative discussions to design an effective system."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.