Lee International

The Intellectual Property High Court (IPHC) has recently revised its procedures to broadly allow foreign parties residing abroad to participate in hearings online, not only in international cases but also in non-international cases.  This marks a meaningful departure from prior practice, under which foreign parties often faced practical barriers to real-time participation due to geographic distance and language constraints.

Since the introduction of the international trial procedures in 2018, the procedures have been primarily used in cases with significant international elements, such as disputes involving foreign parties or matters requiring evidentiary examinations in a foreign language.  Once a case is designated as an international case, the IPHC provides numerous procedural advantages, including free court-appointed interpreters, acceptance of foreign-language documents without Korean translations, and English translations of decisions.  However, despite these benefits, these procedures have been underutilized due to factors such as the need for the opposing party’s consent, misconceptions that all hearings must be conducted entirely in a foreign language, and travel restrictions following the pandemic.

Against this backdrop, the IPHC recently permitted, for the first time, a foreign party to participate remotely from overseas via videoconferencing in a design right case designated as an international case.  While domestic counsel attended the hearing in person, the foreign party joined from abroad and was able to observe the court’s reactions and the arguments of both sides in real time.  Although the hearing was conducted in Korean, the court provided simultaneous and consecutive interpretation, as well as machine-translated subtitles, enabling the foreign party to fully understand the proceedings and to make statements in a foreign language when necessary.  This development is expected to significantly enhance the practical utility of international trial procedures and suggests that remote participation by foreign parties will become increasingly common.