Supreme Court Rules LG Electronics Must Compensate Researcher After Profiting from Patent Sale 10 Years Later
Supreme Court: "Statute of Limitations Begins from Profit Realization"
LG Electronics Researcher’s Lawsuit Sent Back for Retrial
Even if ten years have passed since a company succeeded to an employee invention patent, the statute of limitations for a claim for compensation (10 years) must be recalculated from the point at which the company transfers the patent to a third party and profits from it, according to a ruling by the Supreme Court as of August 11, 2026.
The Supreme Court's second division (Presiding Justice Oh Kyungmi) overturned the appellate court's decision—which had ruled against a former LG Electronics researcher, Mr. A, in a lawsuit demanding compensation for an employee invention—and remanded the case to the Patent Court.
Mr. A worked as a researcher at LG Electronics from 2000, and invented proximity touch sensing technology for mobile phones. The company succeeded to the patent for this invention in 2008 and filed related applications both domestically and internationally. Later, in September 2015, LG Electronics transferred the patent—together with eleven other patents—to an external company for a fee. Subsequently, Mr. A filed suit requesting compensation for the transfer profit, in accordance with the company’s employee invention compensation policy.
The appellate court, which is the Patent Court, ruled that the 10-year statute of limitations had already run from 2008, when the company succeeded to the patent, and thus found for the defendant, stating the claim was time-barred. The reasoning given was that the company’s compensation policy was merely a procedural regulation and did not specify a separate time for payment.
However, the Supreme Court took a different view. The court held that if internal regulations specify compensation is to be paid when a profit is made through a paid transfer or the exercise of rights, this legally constitutes setting the time of payment as an “indefinite term.”
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The justices stated, “In principle, the statute of limitations for an employee’s claim for compensation over an invention commences upon the patent’s succession, but if the work rules or similar regulations set independent conditions for payment, the statute only begins to run when those conditions are met,” adding, “Therefore, the limitation period for LG Electronics should be calculated from 2015, when the patent was transferred for a profit.”
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