The Korea Association of Property Appraisers came out Tuesday against a proposed amendment to the Patent Attorney Act that has been pending before the National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee since March.
The association said it had actively sought to resolve the dispute by proposing revisions to the Ministry of Intellectual Property and suggesting ways for the appraisal and patent attorney industries to coexist, but that the ministry had repeatedly insisted the bill could not be amended and was focused only on building a formal pretext.
The association's most serious objection centers on a conflict-of-interest provision. Article 7-5, Paragraph 1, Subparagraph 1 of the proposed amendment would allow patent attorneys to conduct valuation work directly on patents, utility models, designs and trademarks they have personally represented. The association said that if the bill passes as written, it would legally sanction so-called "self-appraisal" — where an attorney evaluates a patent they themselves handled — and would seriously compromise the objectivity and fairness of such valuations.
The association also said it had conveyed to the Ministry of Intellectual Property in discussions last month that the provision could send the wrong signal to the market, encouraging illegal conduct such as fraudulent patent filings and shoddy appraisals, and ultimately causing significant harm to the national economy. It called for the clause to be deleted entirely, citing as precedent the strict legal prohibitions on conflict-of-interest work that apply to other licensed professionals — including appraisers under the Appraisal Act, lawyers under the Attorney-at-Law Act, and certified public accountants under the Certified Public Accountant Act.
In addition, the association said it had continuously urged the ministry to clearly enshrine in law a strict national oversight framework — including stronger disciplinary provisions within the amendment — to prevent a recurrence of cases in which patent attorneys conducted faulty intellectual property valuations, as occurred in 2020.
"We must be wary that the discussion around this amendment does not degenerate into a simple turf war between licensed professions," an association official said. "Intellectual property valuation is a field that requires collaboration between appraisers and patent attorneys above all else, so this amendment should lead to productive discussion aimed at making South Korea a global leader in intellectual property — not become a source of conflict and confrontation."
Meanwhile, the amendment to the Patent Attorney Act passed the National Assembly's Trade, Industry, Energy, SMEs and Startups Committee on March 12. The bill — a committee substitute consolidating and reconciling two separately introduced measures, one sponsored by lawmaker Kim Jong-min and the other by lawmaker Park Sang-ung — is designed to strengthen the expertise and public role of patent attorneys, introduce a confidentiality privilege for patent attorneys, and clarify the procedural rules governing appraisal work currently listed under Article 2 of the Patent Attorney Act.
hwshin@heraldcorp.com
