공유특허권의 실시와 이전에 관한 쟁점과 제언

Disputed Point and Suggestion on Licensing and Transfer of Co-owned Patent Rights

As nowadays technical development has been complicated, diversified, and updated, joint research and development between a company and acompany or between a company and a university or a research institute, in addition to sole research and development by a company or a research institute, have been activated, and thus many co-owned patent rights have been registered. However, although, according to the current Patent Act, regulationson the licensing and transfer of co-owned patent rights by joint applicants have been prescribed as special rules corresponding to the co-ownership or joint ownership in the Civil Act, there are many problems in the application and analysis of such provisions. In this study, the exercise of patent rights by a co-owner and the limitations thereof, the validity of co-owned patent rights and the main cause of instability thereof, and so forth, have been examined through introduction of the disputed point concerning the current provisions on the licensing and transfer of the co-owned patent rights. Also, through comparison and analysis of related regulations in the U.S.A., Japan, Germany, France, the U.K., China, and so forth, the improvement direction of the system capable of accelerating the activation of joint research and development and the licensing of co-owned patent rights have been set up, and lastly, the revision direction for licensing and transfer of co-owned patent rights prescribed in Article 99 of the current act has been presented.