의약용도발명의 권리범위

Scope of Protection of Pharmaceutical Use Invention -A Critical Analysis of The Seoul Central District Court's Decision 2005GaHap63349, Delivered On November 17th 2006-

This article relates to study on scope of protection of pharmaceutical use invention focused on critical analysis of the Seoul Central District Court's Decision. Pharmaceutical use invention is very unique in various point. In the case of pharmaceutical use inventions, the claim should be described as product invention. In addition, pharmacological effect of pharmaceutical use invention should be described at the time of patent application and the addition of the pharmacological effect of it is prohibited after the application in principle. In Korea, Court's Decisions concerned with pharmaceutical use inventions were mainly related with description requirement of patent application. Recently, Seoul Central District Court delivered a very important decision as to scope of protection of pharmaceutical use invention. This is the first court's decision as to scope of protection of pharmaceutical use invention in Korea. That is why I decided to analyze this decision even though it is not supreme court's one. This decision suggests that the scope of protection of pharmaceutical use invention cover to the extent that the equivalent use of the equivalent compound of patented claims.