Healthcare specialist corporations CERAGEM Co. has withdrawn a patent infringement lawsuit it filed against a small and midsize company in the same industry. The basis to dispute infringement disappeared after the Intellectual Property High Court ruled that CERAGEM Co.'s registered patent was invalid.
According to a compilation of reporting by ChosunBiz on the 3rd, CERAGEM Co. withdrew on the 20th of last month the lawsuit it filed in April 2023 claiming that Company A infringed a patent it owns. Founded in 2016, Company A is a small and midsize company that sells thermal massage beds, with sales of around 2 billion won.
The patent CERAGEM Co. challenged is "thermal therapy device with a human-body scan function and human-body scanning method using the same." It explains a method in which a motor moves along a user's spine to measure load, and analyzes changes in the force applied to the motor to derive data such as the overall length of the spine, and the relative length and position of each segment. CERAGEM Co. claimed that Company A used the technology while selling a spine massager.
As part of its response, Company A filed an invalidation trial with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board to challenge the validity of CERAGEM Co.'s patent. Company A argued that the patent violated the Patent Act, which requires that an invention be written clearly and concisely, and that it was unclear what the data and changes included in CERAGEM Co.'s patent referred to, making it difficult to deem it a legally protectable patent.
It also argued that novelty and inventive step, essential requirements for patent rights, were not recognized. Because similar patents already existed, information about a user's spine could be easily generated by a person of ordinary skill in the art, so the patent should be deemed invalid.
In July 2024, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board did not accept Company A's claims. It judged that the technology differed from existing massagers and could not be easily derived through a simple combination. Company A, dissatisfied with the board's decision, filed suit with the Intellectual Property High Court. Patent disputes proceed from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's decision to the Intellectual Property High Court and then the Supreme Court if appealed.
The Intellectual Property High Court, which serves as the de facto second instance, reached a different conclusion. In July last year, the court ruled that "the inventive step of the patent is denied," concluding that the patent registration was invalid. When a patent is invalidated, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's decision is overturned and CERAGEM Co. also loses the basis to claim "patent infringement."
At the time, the panel found that the technology CERAGEM Co. claimed as a patent was merely a combination of existing massage and thermal therapy device patents and could be easily derived by a person of ordinary skill in the art, so it did not recognize inventive step. It determined that both the method of analyzing changes in the force applied to the motor to identify a user's spinal information and the structure that moves the device along the spine were already disclosed technologies, making their combination not difficult.
CERAGEM Co. appealed to seek another legal judgment. However, in December last year, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal and finalized the ruling invalidating the patent.
An industry official said, "Not only Company A but also several companies are already using the 'spine scan' function," and added, "This is a result that does not recognize it as a proprietary technology of a particular company."
CERAGEM Co. said, "We withdrew the lawsuit at the court's recommendation," and added, "There are multiple issues, and we are internally reviewing whether to file additional lawsuits on each issue."