{"id":45210,"date":"2024-04-26T17:37:33","date_gmt":"2024-04-26T09:37:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/?p=45210"},"modified":"2024-04-26T17:37:33","modified_gmt":"2024-04-26T09:37:33","slug":"former-researcher-sues-ktg-over-e-cigarette-patents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/en\/a\/45210","title":{"rendered":"Former Researcher Sues KT&#038;G Over E-cigarette Patents"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Former Researcher Sues KT&amp;G Over E-cigarette Patents<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A former KT&amp;G Corp researcher has filed a lawsuit against his former employer claiming that he was insufficiently compensated for inventing \"the world's first e-cigarette\" while working at the firm, reports the Yonhap News Agency.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Kwak Dae-geun demands KRW2.8 trillion ($2 billion), reportedly the highest amount ever claimed by an individual in a South Korean legal action\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/042624_0937_FormerResea1.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/>\n\t<\/p>\n<p>Photo: Ian O'Hanlon\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>According to the suit, Kwak joined the Korea Ginseng and Tobacco Research Institute in 1991 and began developing a tobacco-heating product in 2005.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<p> In July that year, he registered his first patent for a prototype. In December 2006, he registered another patent for an upgraded version with a controllable heater.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Subsequently, he developed a full e-cigarette set, and registered a patent for part of the device in 2007 before leaving the company in 2010 as part of corporate restructuring.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>After Kwak's departure, KT&amp;G allegedly registered patents for some of his technologies without recognizing his contributions.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In addition to his claim about compensation, Kwak contends that a prominent rival global tobacco firm was able to commercialize its internal heating-based e-cigarette model in South Korea in 2017 due to the absence of overseas patents.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Kwak's requested damages reflects his portion of the revenue KT&amp;G is expected to generate through Kwak's patented technology during the 20-year patent term, as well as what KT&amp;G would have earned if it had registered patents overseas.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>KT&amp;G counters that it has properly rewarded Kwan in the form of offering a technology advisory deal, and that Kwak had agreed not to raise any legal issues.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The firm also said the technologies invented by Kwak are not currently used in the products it is selling.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The e-cigarettes being sold by the global firm in question, meanwhile, did not involve technologies patented by Kwak, according to KT&amp;G, which also noted that the rival firm had already commercialized early-model heated tobacco-type products in 1998.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/tobaccoreporter.com\/2024\/04\/24\/former-researcher-sues-ktg-over-e-cigarette-patents\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Researcher Sues KT&amp;G Over E-cigarette Patents \u00a0 A former KT&amp;G Corp researcher has filed a lawsuit against his former employer claiming that he was insufficiently compensated fo &hellip;<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45209,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}