Korea Information & Communication(025770)(KICC) said the court dismissed its lawsuit claiming "Toss infringed our patent." After the Patent Trial and Appeal Board judged that "the patent right does not stand" for two in-house patents for which KICC claimed patent infringement damages, the court found that the lawsuit itself did not meet the requirements.
According to ChosunBiz reporting compiled on the 21st, the Seoul Central District Court the previous day dismissed in full two lawsuits on the merits that KICC filed against Toss seeking "injunctions against patent infringement." As a result, the injunction KICC sought, asking the court to "ban the sale of payment devices made by infringing our patents," was also nullified.
The court's dismissal of the suits on the merits appears to be due to the earlier decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. In May and July, the board invalidated KICC's "credit card information encryption patent" and "anti-static structure patent," respectively. As a result, neither of the two technologies KICC held now has a valid patent right.
Because the patent authorities did not recognize patent rights for KICC's technologies, the court decided that a lawsuit contesting patent infringement could not be established and dismissed the case.
This effectively ends the 10-month legal battle between KICC and Toss with a complete win for Toss. In Oct. last year, KICC filed for a preliminary injunction with the Seoul Central District Court, asking to "halt the production and sale of Toss's payment devices" over alleged patent infringement. In response, Toss filed invalidation trials against KICC's credit card information encryption patent for payment devices and its anti-static structure patent. Toss argued the patents covered technology already widely used in the industry or standards disclosed before the filing.
Some in the industry say "it is not completely over yet." KICC filed a patent correction trial with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board and a "lawsuit contesting the invalidation decision" with the Intellectual Property High Court, the board's higher court. A legal industry source said, "If KICC's claims are accepted there and it regains the patent rights, the lawsuit with Toss could start over from the beginning."