What can we learn from Korean appeal statistics?

"Trends and Prospects of Recent Trials Before the Korean Intellectual Property Tribunal", by Hyung Geun Ji and Gregory B. Kang (Kim & Chang) gives some interesting insights into how South Korea's bifurcated judicial system operates. The data, according to the authors, with both fewer appeals being filed against the Intellectual Property Tribunal (IPT) and a higher proportion of appeals being dismissed, suggests that the IPT's decisions must be getting better.  As their article states:

... as shown in Table 3 below, the rate of appealing the IPT decisions to the Patent Court has a decreasing trend with 15.2% in 2009. In the meantime, the rate of the Patent Court reversing the IPT decisions more or less decreased to 23.6% in 2009 compared to 24.7% during the recent five years. KIPO concluded that this is due to quality enhancement of the IPT decisions.

As shown in Table 4 below, the rate of appealing the Patent Court decisions to the Supreme Court has no significant changes during the recent five years. Further, the rate of the Supreme Court reversing the Patent Court decisions more or less decreased to 9.7% in 2009 compared to 10.6% during the recent five years.

According to the above statistics, it can be noted that the reliability of the IPT decisions has been gradually increasing and the rate of the Supreme Court reversing the Patent Court decisions is also no more than 10% or so. In view of the foregoing, it may be concluded that parties handling court trials or IPT actions in Korea should make full preparations from the IPT stage which is the first stage of review.

Source: Kim & Chang Newsletter

Korea's Patent Court adopts ethics code

According to the Korean newspaper the JoonAng Daily, the Patent Court has published its first "ethics code" in an attempt to establish its credentials as a corruption-free agency. The Court posted the six tenets on its official website last Wednesday, after the court’s 17 judges and 50 employees held meetings on the subject last December.

The Patent Court’s statement was significant for the detail it went into on the measures that would be taken to heighten the agency’s ethical standards. First the officials pledged that they would not financially exploit court property for personal gain. Then they declared that their family members shared some responsibility in maintaining the organization’s moral integrity, adding that “spouses and other family members should not receive money, gifts or real estate”. They also agreed not to give special favours to people who shared regional, academic or blood relations in carrying out their duties.