To define the term "service invention," one must illustrate the act of invention when the invention by the employee is included in the range of work and the actual cause for invention is included in the past and present work of employee. In essence, ...
To define the term "service invention," one must illustrate the act of invention when the invention by the employee is included in the range of work and the actual cause for invention is included in the past and present work of employee. In essence, the legal issue of "service invention" is noted for a state of sharp, intense confrontation between the patent rights of the employer and the employee; thus, it is necessary to balance out the whole spectrum.
However, considering the acknowledgement of "service invention," the lack of compensation system and the opposition against the compensatory measures for the "service invention" taken by the companies, the legal reality for compensation in the context of "service invention" reflects its unsolved remaining task in a developing nation. Consequently, the employees tend not to ask for further rights due to the fact that the duration of career at work extends up to their retirement; in short, the present state highly requires for specific legal foundation regarding the "service invention" that is based on a broad social system.
A typical case of such injustice would be "Chun-Ji-In" litigation, which was litigated against the Samsung Electronics by the company's research staff. The lawsuit, also referred to as "compensation of twenty one thousand won for an invention by an employee that is worth of 90 trillion won," ended up not receiving its final decision because the plaintiff and the company reached a sort of agreement after the judgement was given against the plaintiff in the first trial. Another case was the lawsuit of "Istraconazol" (athlete's foot curing medicament) on Donga Pharmaceutical Company, commonly known as "compensation of 2 million won for an service invention worth of 20 trillion won." Despite of the fact that the company, accordingly to the company's provisions, must compensate for the service invention about 5 to 10 percent of the total profit made from newly invented service or product, they have not taken any type of compensatory measures for the service invention. As a result, lawsuit was filed, and Mr. Wang, a product research staff, had won the case through the first and second trial, opening up a historical chapter of the "service invention" case.
Reviewing the statistical results provided by the Ministry of Labor (in the ROK) in 2004, companies that chose to adopt a compensatory system for "service invention" were only 19% of all major companies in the Korean peninsula. Although Samsung Electronics has established a code that allowed the company to offer the designated employee for a compensation under minimum extent of 150 million won and Hyundai Motors followed the previous by offering a compensation under 50 million won, the harsh reality is that the employees who came up with an invention were paid rather with much smaller amount of compensation fee. Moreover, despite the company profit reaching its infinity, it is quite irrational to set the minimum compensation as the case with Samsung Electronics.
Although there has been partial amendment of the patent law in 2001 that "the necessary provisions for compensation on the employee's service(product) invention is established and authorized by the presidential command," the presidential segment had not been enacted by law. The bill concerning the amendment of patent law that "the company must compensate 15 percent of the total profit for the service invention" was even brought up for discussion; however, the opposition by National Workers United and major conglomerates was too stern to overcome, as they were more concerned about the decline of company profit that may be triggered by the amendment of the patent law.
A company seeks for profit, a worker does his or her job to receive income, a businessman works for the expansion of his or her own share of earnings. Applying this simple logic, in the case of the "service invention," one must be compensated for the invention made in order to raise the incentives and to build an atmosphere for creating more inventions among the eager-minded employees within the company. If such measures are taken, the company would not only be able to secure patent from the inventor by compensation which would allow them to possess the monopoly-exclusive rights, but also to make a advanced step to profit-maximization, increase of motivation among employees, advancement of technology and further development of national industry.
As possibly shown, the system of "service invention" has a very large significance in a broad context. However, the patent law in the Republic of Korea(ROK) is rather established with an emphasis on individual invention; basically, there are only two articles in the constitution that discussed the patent issue in the "service invention." Certainly, with the occasion of individual invention, the relationship of rights between the employer and the employee is specifically stated. In contrast, with the case of "service invention," it is not stated clearly nor precisely despite of its complexity. Currently, the patent law in the Republic of Korea assures the laws such as "invention-innovation law," "technology-transfer ease law," "enactment of service invention by public officials plus management and compensation code." Yet, there are numerous limitations to them. It is crucial that one needs to establish a systematic device due to the fact that there is no clear standards to clarify the relationship of rights and no legal criterion to measure the evaluation of the invention and amount of compensation for the work done by the employee. Particularly, it is highly essential that a specific organization must be formed so that the controversial disputes can be settled uniformly and swiftly, rather settling countless matters solely at court.