The right and the ten-year period
On 25 June 2026, in case 2025Da217407, Korea’s Supreme Court examined when an employee may claim compensation for an invention transferred to an employer. An employee invention falls within the employer’s business and arises from the employee’s present or former duties. Transferring the right to obtain a patent or the patent itself can give rise to a statutory entitlement to fair compensation.
The Court applied a ten-year limitation period to that entitlement. The critical distinction is between the existence of the right, ordinarily arising on succession by the employer, and the time at which payment can actually be claimed. Employment rules may determine that latter point through payment conditions and procedures, even without fixing a calendar date.
The patent transfers and the employer’s rules
The claimant worked as a researcher from 2000 to 2018, including on mobile-terminal software. After succeeding to employee inventions concerning a portable terminal with proximity-touch detection, the company filed three Korean patent applications around 26 June 2008, followed by related US and European filings claiming Korean priority. On 30 September 2015, it agreed to transfer twelve patents, including the inventions at issue, to another company.
Its compensation framework distinguished product application of registered rights, strategic patents, royalty income and royalty savings. Each category had triggering conditions, such as a paid assignment or licence, or a tangible benefit from exercising rights. Payment then followed the prescribed review and resolution by the employee-invention compensation committee. The researcher pursued statutory compensation as the principal claim and compensation under the company rules in the alternative.
Why the limitation analysis was wrong
The Patent Court dismissed both claims on 21 August 2025 in case 2022Na1708. It treated the rules as calculation and processing arrangements rather than provisions determining payment timing, and counted ten years from 26 June 2008. It also held that the rules did not create a separate monetary claim.
The Supreme Court disagreed on timing. Conditions triggering a particular compensation category, coupled with the prescribed payment procedure, could establish a payment date with an uncertain time of arrival. Absent special circumstances, the employee could exercise the right when that payment time arrived. Treating every compensation claim as immediately due upon transfer therefore misconstrued the starting point. The applicable rules, the actual assignment or licence and the resulting benefit must be considered together.
What the judgment did not establish
The Court nevertheless agreed that internal rules ordinarily specify or supplement the statutory entitlement; they do not, without special circumstances, create an additional contractual debt. Determining when an existing right becomes payable is different from creating a second right. The whole judgment was set aside and remanded because the two claims sought the same compensation and were substantively alternative, despite their ranking as principal and subsidiary claims.
No particular award was finally granted, no universal start date was fixed for all compensation categories, and patent validity or infringement was not decided. Nor should the judgment be read as allowing limitation to remain suspended indefinitely whenever a committee has not acted. Review the applicable rules and amendments, category-specific triggers and procedures, assignment and licensing records and benefit dates. Employees should not rely solely on years since filing or departure; employers should keep the wording of the scheme, its administration and payment records consistent.
The original figure labels and forms are preserved; the text explains the facts and the court’s reasoning.