IP High Court Decision, 2019Na1609 (Case Concerning Exfoliating Tool)

The issue in this case is whether the product practiced by the defendant (hereinafter “the defendant’s product”) constitutes literal infringement or infringement by equivalents of the plaintiff’s patented invention concerning ‘an exfoliating plate with micro-cutters and an exfoliating tool using the same.’ The raised plate by the defendant’s product is ‘shaped like a gourd dipper with a concave center formed through overlapped two circular parts’ and does not have a ‘circular’ or ‘polygonal’ raised plate as in component 2 of the invention claim 1 (hereinafter “differences”), and therefore does not constitute literal infringement. It also does not constitute infringement by equivalents for the following reasons: The means to solve the problem of the patented invention is identified as ‘to provide an exfoliating tool that can safely and efficiently remove dead skin cells by using a number of protruding micro-cutters formed on an exfoliating plate,’ which is shown in the defendant’s product as it is. Since the above means to solve the problem of the patented invention are already known in the prior art, whether the effect of the patented invention and the defendant’s product is substantially identical must be determined by comparing the individual functions or roles of the differences. Unlike the patented invention, the defendant’s product is able to remove dead skin cells in a wide area due to the gourd-shaped design. The effects of the products are not identical in that the defendant’s product additionally remove dead skin cells in the central concave part, collected between the side blades, after removing them with the curved cutting blade, and it may not be deemed easy to change from the patented invention to such a shape.