A procedural question before the merits
In decision 2024Hu10436 of 11 September 2025, Korea’s Supreme Court considered a positive scope-confirmation trial: a patentee’s request for the Intellectual Property Trial and Appeal Board to determine that specified technology falls within its patent. The request, filed on 29 April 2022, relied on claim 1 as corrected in 2019, not indiscriminately on the entire patent.
The board dismissed the request as inadmissible on 9 May 2023, finding insufficient identification and a mismatch with the respondent’s actual technology. The Patent Court set that decision aside on 4 April 2024 in case 2023Heo11944. The Supreme Court accepted key aspects of the technical comparison but remanded because a separate admissibility issue remained unresolved.
Identifying the technology actually used
The system involved formwork, a working platform, a safety rail, a waler and a connector. As the waler rose relative to the rail, the arrangement increased its distance from the building wall. The upper connector was fixed against relative rotation with the waler; its lower end could slide relative to the rail’s brace.
A description need not reproduce every detail of a product: it must specify the corresponding features sufficiently to compare them with the patent claim. Different labels, such as SR-brace and SR-connector, did not change the structure or connections. Figures 2 and 3 essentially matched the respondent’s catalogue. The court therefore upheld the finding that the identified technology was factually the technology used; a trial directed at unused technology would lack a legal interest.
The additional obstacle presented by a later patent
As a rule, an earlier patentee cannot use a positive scope-confirmation trial against a later registered invention to negate that later right outside invalidation proceedings. An exception may arise where the inventions stand in a dependent-use relationship under Article 98 of the Korean Patent Act, allowing scope to be assessed without denying the later registration’s validity.
The respondent asserted that the actual embodiment was its later patented invention. The claimants asserted a dependent-use relationship with corrected claim 1. Establishing sufficient identification and actual use did not resolve those competing positions. The court needed to examine whether the specified subject was a concrete embodiment of the later patent and whether the requisite dependency existed.
Remand and preparation of evidence
The legal interest is an admissibility requirement examined by the court of its own motion. This does not require the court to discover every fact independently, but doubts arising from the record require examination and appropriate clarification of the parties’ allegations and proof. The Supreme Court vacated and remanded without finally deciding dependency or infringement.
Before commencing proceedings, compare the operative corrected claim, the technical description, actual drawings and the later patent separately. Explain the embodiment and the alleged dependent relationship, rather than relying on similar terminology or the mere existence of two patents. The proper procedural route depends on those distinctions.
The original figure labels and forms are preserved; the text explains the facts and the court’s reasoning.