Newsletter | August 2014, Issue 3
	INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
	District Court rejected preliminary injunction prohibiting patent infringement for lack of urgent necessity to preserve a right
	On April 23, 2014, the Seoul Central District Court rejected a petition filed by Cuckoo Electronics Co., Ltd. (“Petitioner”), a manufacturer of Korean-style electric pressure rice cookers and other home appliances, seeking a preliminary injunction to prohibit the sale of rice cookers by its competitor, Lihom-Cuchen, Co. Ltd (“Respondent”), on the basis of patent infringement. A preliminary injunction is sought to preserve a party’s rights even before the existence of such rights can be recognized and affirmed in a main action.  As such, a preliminary injunction can be granted only when there is an urgent necessity to preserve the rights of the party seeking the injunction.  In this case, the court rejected the Petitioner’s preliminary injunction claim for the reason that the “necessity to preserve its rights” requirement was not met. The court denied the necessity to preserve Petitioner’s rights after considering the following facts: (i) Petitioner failed to take actions against the respondent’s sale of infringing products for a considerable period of time after it came to know about such infringement; (ii) the rise of Respondent’s market share was not necessarily caused by the alleged patent infringement; (iii) Petitioner has not used the patent at issue for its own products; and (iv) if the preliminary injunction is granted, Respondent would suffer substantial damages because the allegedly infringing product represents a large portion of Respondent’s total revenue. Kim & Chang represented and successfully defended Lihom-Cuchen in the above preliminary injunction action.
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