특허침해 손해액 산정시 특허법 제128조의 조항별 활용도, 인용규모 및 영향요인 간 관계에 관한 통계분석과 시사점 (Statistical Analysis on the Relationship among the Use of Each Paragraph of the Korean Patent Act Art. 128, the Amount of Patent Infringement Damages, and Influential Factors)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국법경제학회
· 수록지 정보 : 법경제학연구 / 13권 / 2호 / 233 ~ 280페이지
· 저자명 : 최지선

초록

본 논문에서는 우리 제1심 법원에서 2009. 1. 1.- 2015. 6. 30. 사이에 판결이 이루어진 특허·실용신안권 손해배상액 산정례를 대상으로 특허법 제128조 각 조항의 적용 빈도, 조항별 인용규모, 그리고 잠재적 영향요인 간 관계를 분석하였다. 최종적으로 분석에 포함된 사례는 피침해권리 기준 62개(중복 포함)였으며, 분석 도구로는 통계분석 프로그램인 SPSS 프로그램의 버전 20.0 을 사용하였다. 특허법 제128조 각 조항의 적용례 간 비교 분석과 함께, SPSS의 통계적 클러스터분석 기법을 사용하여‘재량에 기한 상당손해액 조항’적용례를 유형화하고 그 결과의 해석을통해 법적 시사점을 도출하였다.
본 연구는 네 개의 탐색적 연구가설을 토대로 분석을 수행하였다. 가설별 분석 결과, 첫째 원고는 특허법 제128조의 여타 조항보다‘침해자이익 손해액추정 조항’을 적극적으로 활용하여청구액을 산정하는 것으로 나타났다. 둘째, 실제 인용액의 산정에 있어 우리 제1심 법원은‘재량에 기한 상당손해액 조항’을 활용하는 빈도가 현저히 높았다. 셋째, 법원이‘재량에 기한 상당손해액 조항’을 적용하여 손해액을 산정한 사례의 손해액 크기는 타 조항 적용례와 비교하여 현저히 적었다. 그런데 인용률의 경우는 타 조항 적용시와 유사하였는데, 청구액 단위의 상세 분석 결과, 이는 동 조항 적용례의 상당수가 대체로 소액청구 사건에서 권리자를 보호해 주기 위한 취지로 사용되었기 때문인 것으로 나타났다. 넷째, 그런데‘재량에 기한 상당손해액 조항’적용례가 모두 동질적인 속성을 지니고 있을지에 관한 검토에서, 통계적 클러스터분석의 결과는동 조항의 적용례가 주장 법조와 인용규모(인용액·률) 및 원·피고 속성, 권리종류, IPC 기술분야, 원고측 대리인 유형, 선고법원 등의 변수의 견지에서 양극화된 것으로 나타났다. 동 조항의적용례는 개인·중소기업 등 취약권리자의 실용신안권을 포함한 중저기술 소액 사건의 권리보호 사례(제1집단)와 다국적·대기업 등 권리자의 고기술 다액 사건의 사례(제2집단)로 대조를이루었고, 제1집단은 정성적 산정, 제2집단은 소득세법상 소득추계 단순경비율 산정법을 주로사용하는 것으로 나타나 손해액 산정법과도 통계적으로 유의한 상관관계가 존재하는 것으로분석되었다.
‘재량에 기한 상당손해액’조항을 적용하여 손해액을 산정하는 것은 원고의 권리구제라는점에 있어서는 긍정적인 효과가 크다. 그러나 동 조항에의 의존도가 지나치게 크고, 동 조항 적용시 특정 산정법이 특정 유형 집단에 편중되어 있다는 점은 그 유형을 인지하고 있는지 여부에따라 손해액 산정의 유·불리가 영향을 받을 수 있고 불특정 다수 일반 당사자의 예측 가능성을저해할 수 있는 등 우려의 시선을 받을 수 있는 여지도 있다. 손해액 산정 과정의 투명성과 객관적 합리성 제고를 위한 노력이 더욱 중요한 시점이라고 할 것이다

영어초록

Patent infringement damages become more important than ever before as the knowledgebased economy is prevalent in the 21st century. It takes a role as a realized economic value as well as a monetary relief. In the past, the legal issues regarding patent infringement damages focused on under-compensation, which emphasized that the amount of damages was too small to provide an adequate compensation. However, this paper states that the issues regarding the reasonable calculation of damages cannot be overlooked.
This study investigates the characteristics of patent infringement damages in the Korean district courts from the perspective of Art. 128 of the Korean Patent Act, which defines four ways of damages calculation or presumption methods such as “damages calculation multiplying sales quantity of infringers by profit ratio of right holders”,“ damages calculation based on infringer’s profit”,“ damages calculation based on resonable royalties”, and “damages calculation based on court’s discretion”. 62 cases in terms of infringed rights were basically gathered from the written judgments of the Korean district courts in between 2009.
1. 1. and 2015. 6. 30. In addition, the relevant data concerning 62 cases were acquired from public or private data sources on the Internet. The analysis is based on basic statistical techniques with SPSS ver. 20.0 program. Mainly used techniques include one-way ANOVA in combination with cross-tabulation, and cluster analysis.
It set up the four basic research hypotheses for the reason. As for the results concerning the first research hypothesis, the most frequently used paragraph by right holders was the paragraph that presumed infringer’s profit as damages. In terms of the second one, the district courts in Korea relied heavily on the paragraph of courts’discretion when assessing patent infringement damages. As for the third hypothesis, in the analysis of the amount of damages by each paragraph, the amount of damages based on the paragraph of court’s discretion was much smaller than that based on the other paragraphs in terms of median value, while the ratio between the amount of money plaintiffs sued for and those courts assessed was not much different among the paragraphs. It can be translated that many cases relevant to the paragraph of court’s discretion are the cases which are more related to a small amount of court money by a kind of vulnerable plaintiffs such as individuals or SMEs.
In the analysis about the fourth hypothesis as to whether the cases concerning the paragraph of court’s discretion had similar characteristics or not, they were divided into two clusters with contrasting characteristics in terms of the attributes of plaintiffs/defendants, types of rights, IPC technology field, location of courts, and types of legal representatives. One cluster was identified with the cases where plaintiffs were mainly individuals or small and medium sized enterprises, with a small amount of damages and low-level of technologies. In contrast, the other cluster was identified with those where plaintiffs were mainly foreign or large enterprises, with a large amount of damages and high-level of technologies. The two clusters were also differentiated from the perspective of the type of damages calculating methods. The difference in damages calculation methods between cluster 1 and 2 was statistically significant in a 99.9% confidence interval. The cases in the latter cluster were mainly involved with income estimation methods based on Art. 80(3) of the Income Tax Act, whereas those in the former cluster were involved with the qualitative calculation method without any objective calculation formula in similar with non-pecuniary damages.
The frequent use of the paragraph of court’s discretion and the resulting polarization may can be interpreted into two contrasting ways. On its bright side, it contributed to protect the cases by vulnerable plaintiffs with a small amount of damages. However, on its dark side, it seemed to be used as a shield for the plaintiffs of foreign and large firms with a large amount of damages with a specific damages calculation method, which could cause a serious doubt on the fairness of the system of estimating damages award in patent infringement case. It also can have a bad influence on the interoperability of fair market standards, which is considered important for developing IP markets. Regardless of some limitations from legal and statistical perspectives, this study draws on the implication that the courts need to open up the black boxes of court's patent damages methods and to attempt to establish reliable standards for exercising discretion.

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