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A Seoul court has ruled in favor of a Korea Aerospace University professor who sued Microsoft for patent infringement. The court on Tuesday said the software giant¡¯s Korean branch partially violated the patent of Prof. Lee Keung-hae. Lee has the patent for a technology for automatically switching the input mode between Korean and English in a Word program.
The interim ruling comes eight years after Lee filed the suit in 2000. A more complete ruling on the amount of damages due to Lee will be made later.
Lee sought W40 million (US$1=W944) in compensation when he first lodged the suit eight years ago. But with the recent ruling, he could receive an enormous amount of damages. He is currently totting up the compensation with his lawyer.
The bench said Microsoft partially violated Lee¡¯s patent given that Lee and the company solved the typing error problem in the same way. Lee lost the trial at first instance in 2001, and Microsoft sued the professor, asking the court to acknowledge that Lee¡¯s technology was not patented. But the Supreme Court ruled that the professor has a right to the technology. Based on the Supreme Court¡¯s decision, a lower court then ruled in favor of the professor.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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