Presiding Judge Toshihiko Tsuruoka and Judge Takafumi Kokubu of the IP High Court participated in the International IP Court Conference (IIPCC) held at Lotte City Hotel and the Patent Court of Korea, both located in Daejeon, the Republic of Korea (ROK), on October 16 and 17, 2019. They also visited the Supreme Court of Korea in Seoul on October 18.
The IIPCC is an international conference hosted by the Patent Court of Korea and has been held in autumn annually since 2015. Judges and other IP experts from Europe, the U.S., and Asia attend this conference and discuss practical issues concerning judgments and procedures of international IP litigation.
The 2019 IIPCC was held under the theme of "COURT, IP and FAIRNESS," Judges and attorneys from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the U.S., the U.K., Germany, Switzerland, China, the ROK, and Japan participated in the conference as speakers, panelists and mock trial judges and more than 200 lawyers and IP personnel of private firms attended it. In the panel discussion sessions, Judge Tsuruoka participated in Session 1 "Claim Construction for Lawful Protection of Patent" and Session 3 "Exhaustion of Rights: Lawful Exercise of Patent and Other Rights," and Judge Kokubu participated in Session 2 "Legitimate Exercise of Trademarks: Various Issues in Litigation" and Session 4 "Enhanced Damages and Lawful Protection of IP Rights," both as panelists. Judge Tsuruoka and Judge Kokubu also served as judges in the mock trials of patent infringement litigation and trademark infringement litigation, respectively.
After the conference, they visited the Supreme Court of Korea with judges and attorneys from other countries, and toured the court and exchanged opinions with a justice of the Supreme Court of Korea and other Korean judges.