[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Daeseop] The patent lawsuit related to the bottle of HiteJinro beer 'Terra' is entering its second phase. The first hearing of the appeal, filed in response to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's decision last November, is scheduled for the 26th.
On the 25th, Jang Taegwan, chairman of the Kyungcheong Foundation, stated at a briefing on the patent lawsuit held at the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business in Yeouido, Seoul, "We believe that small businesses involved in technology theft disputes with large corporations that have hired major law firms should at least have the opportunity to legally contest. Therefore, we have decided to provide legal support for this retrial."
The HiteJinro Terra bottle patent lawsuit began when inventor Jeong Gyeongil raised an issue regarding the design of the rotating protrusion on the neck of the Terra bottle, released in March last year, claiming that this part infringed on his patent. HiteJinro filed a 'declaratory judgment of non-infringement' with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, which ruled in November last year that Jeong's patent was invalid and did not fall within the scope of patent rights.
Jeong appealed this decision to the Patent Court in December last year and also applied for mediation with the Industrial Property Dispute Mediation Committee. The mediation failed in February this year.
Chairman Jang emphasized, "We will unite the in-house lawyers at Kyungcheong, external advisory law firms, and the legal support team of the Foundation for Small and Medium Enterprises and Agriculture and Fisheries Cooperation to respond to the large law firms representing the large corporations."
Kyungcheong is a private public interest corporation established in October last year. It provides legal and administrative support activities to help small and medium enterprises suffering damages in areas such as copyright and technology. According to Kyungcheong, the first hearing date at the Patent Court is scheduled for the 26th of this month.
Inventor Jeong argues that, contrary to the first trial's decision, the Terra bottle patent technology is not something that can be created by simply combining previous technologies. He also maintains that declaratory judgment of non-infringement is possible.
Jeong stated, "HiteJinro claims that the comb-shaped protrusions (spirals) on the outside of the Terra bottle were made for aesthetic purposes, and that the internal protrusions were unintentional and inevitably occurred during the manufacturing process. However, since the internal comb-shaped protrusions do exist, if they were truly unintentional, it would have been possible to sufficiently exclude functional elements in the internal bottle design and produce it without protrusions."
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