Supreme Court: "Similar Ideas Do Not Constitute Theft"... Overturns Order for JinHak to Pay 20 Million Won in Damages

Supreme Court: "Insufficient Evidence of Misappropriation... Case Remanded"

20 Million Won Damages Order Against JinHak Overturned

The Supreme Court has overturned an appellate court ruling that ordered JinHak, an educational admissions company, to pay 20 million won for allegedly stealing the idea behind a university review service from an education startup. The Court held that there must be objective evidence to prove unauthorized use of another party’s achievements.

Supreme Court, Seocho-gu, Seoul. Photo by Yonhap News

According to legal sources on August 16, the Third Division of the Supreme Court, presided over by Justice Lee Sugyeon, recently overturned the appellate judgment—which had partially ruled in favor of JinHak—regarding a lawsuit to confirm non-existence of obligation filed by JinHak against the educational startup Tandem, and a countersuit filed by Tandem for injunction against unfair competition and damages. The Supreme Court sent the case back to the Seoul High Court for retrial.

In 2018, Tandem had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with JinHak regarding joint development of "AdCampus," a university review service. However, when JinHak launched a similar service called "CampusReview" in April 2019, Tandem reported the company to the Korean Intellectual Property Office, claiming unauthorized use of its idea. As corrective recommendations were not observed, the dispute escalated to litigation. Tandem filed a counterclaim demanding damages of 30 million won from JinHak.

The district court had ruled in favor of JinHak, but the appellate court found that JinHak had violated the Unfair Competition Prevention Act by using Tandem’s review data and API (application programming interface) without authorization, and ordered JinHak to pay Tandem 20 million won in damages.

However, the Supreme Court took a different view. The Court reaffirmed the legal principle that, for damages to be awarded under the Unfair Competition Prevention Act for "unauthorized use of achievements," the party claiming infringement must prove the other party’s unauthorized use with objective evidence.

The panel noted, "Although Tandem claims that JinHak used its review data and API, it failed to provide evidence showing that even a single data point was actually used in JinHak’s service."

The Supreme Court further stated, "JinHak submitted evidence showing that it collected data directly through its own events, and has accumulated its own know-how by operating online lecture and corporate review services since 2016. The mere similarity in the appearance of the services alone is not sufficient to conclude there was unauthorized use or unfair competition."

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