Patent Office: "If You Lose a Patent Trial, You Must Bear Even the Evidence Investigation Costs"

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] The "Notice on the Determination of Industrial Property Rights Trial Costs," which requires the losing party in a patent trial to bear the cost of evidence investigation, will be enforced starting from the 1st.

According to the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO), the burden of evidence investigation costs on the losing party is implemented to resolve the unfairness where, despite conducting evidence investigations such as forgery verification and digital forensic appraisal during trial procedures, the costs could not be charged to the losing party.

The burden of evidence investigation costs on the losing party will be applied from trials requested after the 1st, with the intention of activating evidence investigations necessary for trial proceedings. Through this, parties in patent trials can request evidence investigations, and if they win, they can charge the investigation costs to the losing party.

In particular, among the trial costs currently charged to the losing party, the attorney's fees cannot exceed the trial request fee, which caused the problem that when a party receives a reduction (exemption) of the trial request fee, the maximum amount for attorney's fees also decreases.

However, with the revision of the notice, if a party receives a reduction of the trial request fee, they can claim attorney's fees within the range of the trial request fee before the reduction.

KIPO explains that even if the trial request fee is reduced, the upper limit of attorney's fees charged to the losing party will not decrease.

Joo Young-sik, President of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, said, "With this revision, we hope that evidence investigations will be activated and that trial procedures will be conducted accurately and fairly," adding, "As we have resolved unreasonable aspects of the calculation standards for attorney's fees charged to the losing party, KIPO will continue to actively strive to eliminate unreasonable elements from the public's perspective."