Open Decision Ledger · IP, data & telecommunications
Claim interpretation and inventive step of dependent claims
Supreme Court, Apr. 9, 2020, 2018Hu12202 (judgment)
No holding summary · checked against points at issue. The official text publishes no summary of the holding for this decision. The quotation and factors in this record are copied verbatim from the points at issue; the evidence for each axis is taken from the points at issue, the order and the reasons.
Case name: 등록무효(특)
Official text on the National Law Information Center
Question
Where claim 1 of a patented invention was construed from the wording of its claim scope read with the description and drawings, was its inventive step denied over a prior art invention in an adjacent technical field, and must the inventive step of claims 2, 4 and 9, which contain its technical features, be examined including their added or limited components?
Holding
Yes. The claim scope is construed from the ordinary meaning of its wording read with the description and drawings, objectively and reasonably, and neither limitation nor expansion by other parts of the document is allowed. On that basis claim 1, whose display structure means the form in which data display areas are arranged on the display screen, was held to lack inventive step over prior art 2, and claims 2, 4 and 9, which contain that technical feature, must have their inventive step examined including the components by which they are added to or limited. The Supreme Court held that the Patent Court had misread the law on claim interpretation and on inventive step.
Points at issue, verbatim
제1항 발명의 청구범위의 해석 및 기술적 과제 등에 비추어, 제1항 발명은 통상의 기술자가 선행발명을 기초로 쉽게 발명할 수 있으므로 진보성이 부정되고
Unofficial English translation
in light of the construction of the claim of the invention of claim 1 and the technical task, etc., the invention of claim 1 lacked inventive step in that it could have been easily made by a person having ordinary skill in the art on the basis of the prior art
Disposition
Reversed and remanded Stated in the decision
원심판결을 파기하고, 사건을 특허법원에 환송한다.
Unofficial English translation
The judgment of the court below is reversed, and the case is remanded to the Patent Court.
Form of the test
Elements stated Stated in the decision
청구범위에 적혀 있는 사항은 그 문언의 일반적인 의미를 기초로 하면서도 발명의 설명과 도면 등을 참작하여 그 문언으로 표현하고자 하는 기술적 의의를 고찰한 다음 객관적·합리적으로 해석하여야 한다.
Unofficial English translation
The matters stated in the claim must be construed objectively and reasonably, based on the ordinary meaning of the language while taking into consideration the description of the invention and the drawings, etc., and by examining the technical significance sought to be expressed by that language.
Factors
- 제1항 발명의 청구범위의 해석 및 기술적 과제 등에 비추어, 제1항 발명은 통상의 기술자가 선행발명을 기초로 쉽게 발명할 수 있으므로 진보성이 부정되고
- 그 기술적 특징을 그대로 포함하거나 거기에 일부 구성요소를 부가·한정하고 있는 제2항, 제4항, 제9항 발명은 그 부가·한정된 구성요소를 포함하여 진보성 부정 여부를 심리·판단하여야 하는데도
- 이와 달리 본 원심판단에 법리오해의 잘못이 있다고 한 사례
Unofficial English translation
• in light of the construction of the claim of the invention of claim 1 and the technical task, etc., the invention of claim 1 lacked inventive step in that it could have been easily made by a person having ordinary skill in the art on the basis of the prior art
• the inventions of claim 2, claim 4, and claim 9, which included the technical features as they were or had some components added to or limited thereto, should have been heard and determined as to whether inventive step was denied including those added or limited components
• a case where the finding of the court below on this point contained a misapprehension of legal principles
Relation to precedent
Follows earlier decisions Stated in the decision
대법원 2012. 12. 27. 선고 2011후3230 판결
Unofficial English translation
Supreme Court Decision 2011Hu3230 decided December 27, 2012
Decisions referred to
[1] 대법원 2012. 12. 27. 선고 2011후3230 판결, 대법원 2019. 10. 17. 선고 2019다222782, 222799 판결(공2019하, 2090)
Burden of proof
Not addressed Not in the decision
Open question and revisit condition
When the components added to a dependent claim are examined for inventive step, what standard applies to those components alone rather than to the invention as a whole?
The Patent Court's judgment on remand, which must examine claims 2, 4 and 9 with their added or limited components, will show how that requirement works in practice. A change to Article 29(2), Article 42(2) or Article 97 of the Patent Act would require this entry to be read again.
Cross-family AI independent reading & axis check
7 of 8 axes matched GPT-6 Astra (OpenAI, codex CLI) · 2026-10-25
A reader from another model family (GPT-6 Astra), given the official text but not the primary reading, agreed on 7 of the 8 axes; the readings differed on axis 4 (form of the test).
Axis 4 (Form of the test): Primary “Elements stated” vs Independent “Existing test applied”
The primary reading treats the standard as a requirement statement for claim interpretation and inventive step, while the independent reading treats it as applying the standard to the facts. The holding both explains the method and applies it, so the emphasis differs.
제1항 발명은 통상의 기술자가 선행발명을 기초로 쉽게 발명할 수 있으므로 진보성이 부정되고Raw responses and comparison record: Protocol · Blind readings (JSONL) · Axis comparison (JSONL) · SHA-256 (JSON)
Lower-court contrast & scope of application
Lower-court reading vs. Supreme Court holding
Lower-court context: The Patent Court, in its judgment of 15 November 2018 (2017Heo6941), construed the display structure of claim 1 as the layout of the display screen, decided by the position and size of the various other element areas forming the screen, in which one or more of the application image area, the application name area and the application icon area may be included and the divided areas are mutually distinguishable and display different data. On that reading it held that prior art 2 displayed one and the same kind of data, TV channel video, on its divided screens, so claim 1 was not invalidated thereby, and it held the inventive step of claims 2, 4 and 9 likewise unimpeached.
Supreme Court standard: The Supreme Court held that the claim scope is fixed by what is written in it under Article 97 of the Patent Act, and that the wording, read with the description and drawings and construed objectively and reasonably, shows the display structure of claim 1 to mean the form in which data display areas are arranged on the display screen, without any limitation on the kinds of data displayed. It found that prior art 2, a TV multi-screen split icon display invention, belongs to an adjacent technical field, contains claim 1's technical task of varying the arrangement according to the user's individuality, and shares the identical sequential steps, so that a person with ordinary knowledge could apply it to a communications device display without particular technical difficulty. Because claim 1 lacked inventive step, claims 2, 4 and 9 had to be examined with their added or limited components, and the judgment below, which had erred in law on both points, was reversed and the case was remanded to the Patent Court on the unanimous opinion of the Justices.
Distinguishing conditions
- A dependent claim whose added or limited components do not carry the independent claim's technical feature, so that it is not a claim containing that feature.
- A prior art invention that does not contain the claimed technical task, so that no relation of encompassing it arises.
- A case in which the wording of the claim scope would have to be limited or expanded by the description or drawings, which the decision says is not permitted.
Record verification notes
Set the construed meaning of each disputed term against the wording, then the description and the drawings, and confirm that the description is used only to understand the wording rather than to limit or extend it. Compare the technical task and the sequential steps of the claim with those of the cited prior art one by one, since the Court found prior art 2 to contain the technical task of claim 1 and to share the identical steps for changing the arrangement. For each dependent claim, list the components by which it is added to or limited and test their effect on inventive step separately.
From the official text
Points at issue
[1] 신규성·진보성 판단의 대상이 되는 특허발명의 내용을 확정하기 위한 특허청구범위의 해석 방법 [2] 갑 유한회사가 명칭을 “이동 통신 단말기의 디스플레이 구조 변경 시스템 및 방법”으로 하는 특허발명의 특허권을 이전받은 을 주식회사를 상대로 특허발명의 진보성 등이 부정된다는 이유로 특허무효심판을 청구하였는데, 특허심판원이 특허청구범위의 일부 청구항을 무효로 하고 제1항, 제2항, 제4항, 제9항 발명에 관하여는 청구를 기각하는 심결을 한 사안에서, 제1항 발명의 청구범위의 해석 및 기술적 과제 등에 비추어, 제1항 발명은 통상의 기술자가 선행발명을 기초로 쉽게 발명할 수 있으므로 진보성이 부정되고, 그 기술적 특징을 그대로 포함하거나 거기에 일부 구성요소를 부가·한정하고 있는 제2항, 제4항, 제9항 발명은 그 부가·한정된 구성요소를 포함하여 진보성 부정 여부를 심리·판단하여야 하는데도, 이와 달리 본 원심판단에 법리오해의 잘못이 있다고 한 사례
Unofficial English translation
[1] The method of construing the patent claim for determining the content of the claimed invention subject to the assessment of novelty and inventive step [2] A case where, in a matter in which A LLC filed a trial for invalidation of a patent right against B Co., Ltd., which had received transfer of the patent right of a patent invention titled "System and Method for Changing the Display Structure of a Mobile Communication Terminal," on the ground that the inventive step of the patent invention was denied, and the Intellectual Property Trial and Appeal Board rendered a decision invalidating some of the claims of the patent claim and dismissing the claim as to the inventions of claim 1, claim 2, claim 4, and claim 9, in light of the construction of the claim of the invention of claim 1 and the technical task, etc., the invention of claim 1 lacked inventive step in that it could have been easily made by a person having ordinary skill in the art on the basis of the prior art, and the inventions of claim 2, claim 4, and claim 9, which included the technical features as they were or had some components added to or limited thereto, should have been heard and determined as to whether inventive step was denied including those added or limited components, but the finding of the court below on this point contained a misapprehension of legal principles.
Summary of the holding
The official text publishes no summary of the holding for this decision. The quotation and factors in this record are copied verbatim from the points at issue; the evidence for each axis is taken from the points at issue, the order and the reasons.
Order
원심판결을 파기하고, 사건을 특허법원에 환송한다.
Unofficial English translation
The judgment of the court below is reversed, and the case is remanded to the Patent Court.
Provisions referred to
[1] 특허법 제42조 제2항, 제97조 [2] 특허법 제29조 제2항, 제42조 제2항, 제97조
Read 2026-10-25 · Cross-read 2026-10-25. All quotes matched against the official text. The Chinese-character placeholders the court used for anonymised parties are given in their Korean readings, and parenthetical Chinese-character glosses are omitted.
Every entry is published only after all quotes have been matched character by character against the official text, and audited by an independent second reading from a different model family across all eight axes. Both agreed axes and text-grounded interpretive divergences are recorded openly. The ledger is a research record, not an assessment of the court or advice on any matter.
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