The semiconductor and LCD manufacturers, Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics are enforcing their legal affairs teams preparing for possible patent disputes.
Samsung Electronics is to constantly expand the number of its patent staffs to reinforce its negotiation power in international patent lawsuits, although the specific scale of the expansion is unknown.
For this reason, Samsung Electronics has hired patent attorneys, for the first time among the Korean companies, as its staffs fully responsible for patent affairs.
Samsung Electronics is actually suffering various patent lawsuits filed by its international competitors. CEA in France has filed a lawsuit with the Paris court claiming that Samsung has infringed on its technology used for TV and LCD screen without license agreement.
Samsung Electronics is also going through a long patent dispute over DRAM against a Canadian semiconductor company.
Regarding these, Samsung Group expanded its patent force into 240 staffs last year and is getting ready for international patent suits.
LG Electronics is to double its patent force by early next year as well. Its legal affairs team has 30 lawyers and 20 patent attorneys. LG Group as a whole has 200 lawyers and 120 patent attorneys and has been sending two of its selected staffs to the United States for the lawyer license.
A person at the LG Electronics's legal affairs team said, "Korean companies' legal affairs teams have been strengthened and heavily invested in. Accordingly, the companies have certainly become more competitive than the past but still they need to improve the negotiation power in patent disputes." He continued. "Going through IMF crisis, companies' legal demands have explosively increased. The demands will get bigger and bigger."
(Cited from edaily : www.edaily.co.kr)
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