Across 41,054 Korean IP decisions collected through 2026-09-17, grant rates on the merits are 41.4% for patents, 66.2% for trademarks, and 60.2% for designs. Trademark cancellation succeeds most often (91.6%). Median disposition is 10–13 months, and the Patent Court sets aside 33.4% of Board decisions appealed in revocation suits.

About this dataset

This page summarizes the outcomes of Korean intellectual property disputes decided by the Intellectual Property Trial and Appeal Board (the patent tribunal under the Korean Intellectual Property Office, KIPO) and by the courts. It is based on an analysis of 41,054 decisions collected through 2026-09-17, broken down as 36,482 trial decisions by the Board plus 4,572 court judgments (Patent Court and Supreme Court). The snapshot date is 2026-09-17.

The figure of 41,054 is the cumulative corpus collected through 2026-09-17, not the volume of a single year. Rates below are calculated on the Board’s trial decisions, the layer where the “win or lose” outcome of a Korean IP dispute is first decided.

Grant rates by field

The grant rate (or acceptance rate) is the share of cases decided on the merits in which the petitioner’s claim was granted in full or in part. Across the three fields, trademark trials are granted most often and patent trials least often.

Grant rates by trial type

Field averages hide wide variation. The selected trial types show wider variation than the field averages: among the patent types listed below, observed grant rates range from 29.9% (cancellation petition) to 85.2% (negative scope confirmation).

Two patterns stand out. First, “appeal against refusal” — a challenge to an examiner’s rejection — succeeds far more often for trademarks (64.7%) and designs (89.9%) than for patents (37.7%). Second, the two routes to attack a registered patent diverge sharply: a full invalidation trial is granted 53.3% of the time, but a cancellation petition (a faster, narrower post-grant review available for six months after publication) only 29.9%.

How long decisions take

The figures below are estimates of disposition time, rather than exact elapsed times for every case. Trademark trials take the longest on average, designs and patents are quicker.

What happens on appeal: Patent Court reversal rates

A party dissatisfied with a Board decision can challenge it in a revocation suit before the Patent Court, the specialized court that reviews decisions of the Intellectual Property Trial and Appeal Board. Across 4,131 revocation-suit judgments on the merits in the collected corpus, the Patent Court set aside the Board’s decision in 33.4% of cases — about one in three.

The rate is strikingly uniform across fields — roughly one third everywhere — but it varies by trial type. Scope-confirmation decisions, which turn on how broadly the scope of a right is construed, have rates above their field averages in the examples below: 36.9% for patent active scope confirmation, 41.5% for trademark scope confirmation, and 45.2% for design active scope confirmation. Patent appeals against refusal have a lower observed rate at 24.4% — where both the examiner and the Board have rejected an application, the courts usually agree.

The reversal rate counts revocation suits decided on the merits by the Patent Court: a decision is either set aside or upheld, and suits dismissed on procedural grounds are excluded. Supreme Court outcomes are not reported here, because appeals dismissed without substantive review are largely unpublished in Korea and any rate computed from published judgments alone would be skewed.

What the numbers mean

For anyone weighing a Korean IP dispute, the headline takeaway is that observed outcomes vary across the selected procedures, but the differences do not establish that choosing a procedure causes a better outcome. Attacking a registered trademark through a cancellation action is granted about nine times in ten, while a patent cancellation petition — limited to novelty, inventive step, and prior-application grounds and available only for a short window after registration — succeeds less than a third of the time. A full patent invalidation trial, open to broader grounds and to interested parties at any time, has an observed grant rate of 53.3%.

These are historical averages across thousands of decisions and do not predict the outcome of any individual case, which turns on the specific claims, evidence, and grounds raised. They are useful for calibrating expectations and comparing procedural routes, not for guaranteeing a result.

Methodology and data access

The grant rate is defined as (granted + partially granted) divided by the number of cases decided on the merits, expressed as a percentage. Cases dismissed on procedural grounds or withdrawn are excluded from the denominator, so the rate reflects substantive outcomes only. Figures are drawn from the written decisions of the Intellectual Property Trial and Appeal Board and from Patent Court and Supreme Court judgments, analyzed by Sodam Patent & Trademark Office. The snapshot date is 2026-09-17, covering decisions in the collected corpus. Figures were updated on September 20, 2026 to reflect corrected result classifications.

Underlying acceptance-rate data is published openly under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license: trademark acceptance-rate data and design acceptance-rate data. The same figures can be cross-checked on the live dashboards for patent, trademark, and design trials.

FAQ

Q1. How is the grant rate calculated?

The grant rate is (granted + partially granted) divided by the number of cases decided on the merits. Cases that were dismissed on procedural grounds or withdrawn are excluded from the denominator, so the rate measures substantive outcomes only. The same definition is applied consistently across patents, trademarks, and designs.

Q2. Which trial type has the highest success rate?

Among the types listed in the table, trademark cancellation has the highest grant rate at 91.6% on the merits, followed by design appeals against refusal at 89.9% and patent negative scope confirmation at 85.2%. Patent cancellation petitions have the lowest at 29.9%.

Q3. How many decisions does this cover?

The analysis covers 41,054 decisions in the corpus collected through 2026-09-17 — 36,482 trial decisions by the Intellectual Property Trial and Appeal Board plus 4,572 Patent Court and Supreme Court judgments. By field, that is 15,439 patent, 20,023 trademark, and 5,592 design decisions. The snapshot date is 2026-09-17.

Q4. How long does a Korean IP trial take?

The estimated average time to a Board decision is 10.8 months for patents, 14.0 months for trademarks, and 11.5 months for designs. Median times are slightly shorter at 9.9, 13.1, and 10.4 months respectively.

Q5. Where does the data come from?

The figures are based on an analysis of the written decisions of the Intellectual Property Trial and Appeal Board and Patent Court and Supreme Court judgments, compiled by Sodam Patent & Trademark Office. The acceptance-rate data is published openly under a CC BY 4.0 license and can be cross-checked on the firm’s live trial-statistics dashboards.

Q6. How often are Board decisions overturned in court?

When a Board decision is challenged in a revocation suit, the Patent Court sets it aside in 33.4% of cases decided on the merits — 1,381 of 4,131 judgments in the corpus collected through 2026-09-17. The rate is similar across fields: 32.1% for patents, 34.4% for trademarks, and 33.9% for designs. In the examples discussed above, scope-confirmation rates exceed their field averages, while patent appeals against refusal have a lower observed rate (24.4%).

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Figures are historical averages based on written decisions of the Intellectual Property Trial and Appeal Board and court judgments, with data collected through 2026-09-17. They do not predict or guarantee the outcome of any individual case. Underlying acceptance-rate data is available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. This page is general information, not legal advice. Patent Court reversal rates cover revocation suits against Board decisions decided on the merits; Supreme Court outcomes are excluded because appeals dismissed without substantive review are largely unpublished.

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