Supreme Court sides with Jinhaksa in university review dispute, overturning W20m damages award

The Supreme Court has overturned a lower court ruling that found college admissions information provider Jinhaksa guilty of unfair competition in a legal dispute with startup Tandem over the development of a university review service. The ruling reaffirmed the principle that the burden of proof for alleged misappropriation of another party's achievements rests with the party making the claim.

According to legal sources Sunday, the Supreme Court's Third Division, presided over by Justice Lee Suk-yeon, recently overturned part of the lower court's ruling in two consolidated cases — a suit filed by Jinhaksa seeking confirmation of no liability toward Tandem, and a counterclaim filed by Tandem against Jinhaksa seeking an injunction against unfair competition and damages — and remanded the case to Seoul High Court.

Tandem, the startup behind the university rating platform Adcampus, signed a business cooperation agreement with Jinhaksa in 2018 to jointly develop a university review service. The dispute erupted the following year when Jinhaksa launched its own platform, Campus Review, without prior consultation.

Tandem filed a complaint with the Korean Intellectual Property Office in 2020, alleging that Jinhaksa had unlawfully used its student review data and the API (application programming interface) used to access that data. The office ruled in 2021 that Jinhaksa had misused the data without authorization and recommended it pay a usage fee. Jinhaksa contested the finding by filing a suit seeking confirmation of no liability, and Tandem responded with a counterclaim.

Lower courts reached conflicting conclusions. The first-instance court dismissed all of Tandem's claims and ruled that Jinhaksa owed no damages. The second-instance court, however, found that Jinhaksa had unlawfully used Tandem's review data and API, and ordered it to pay 20 million won in damages.

The Supreme Court reached a different conclusion. While it acknowledged that Tandem's review data itself qualifies as "an achievement created through considerable investment or effort" under the Unfair Competition Prevention Act, it found that the API was merely a standard element commonly used across the industry and could not be considered a legally protectable achievement.

The court applied a strict standard on the burden of proof for unauthorized use of protected achievements. It said Tandem had failed to submit even a single concrete example or piece of evidence showing that any of its large volume of review data had actually been misappropriated for use in Jinhaksa's service. By contrast, the court noted that Jinhaksa had submitted evidence showing it independently collected review data through four promotional events with prize giveaways after launching its service.

The court also cited the fact that Jinhaksa had operated similar services — including online lecture reviews — before its collaboration with Tandem, and had accumulated its own technical expertise and data-handling know-how.

The Supreme Court clarified the existing legal principle that the burden of proving unauthorized use of another party's achievements under the Unfair Competition Prevention Act lies with the party alleging the misappropriation, and ordered the case to be reheard.