8.4.1 Revocation cases
Revocation actions refer to those seeking judicial review and subsequent revocation of IPTAB decisions. The IPTAB decides on the invalidity of patent registration, confirms the scope of patent rights and reviews the examiners’ rejections of patent applications. Given that IPTAB decisions are administrative dispositions and that revocation actions are administrative lawsuits filed to contest such dispositions, the Administrative Procedure Act is applicable to revocation actions, and the Civil Procedure Act also applies mutatis mutandis to those actions pursuant to Article 8(2) of the Administrative Procedure Act.34
8.4.1.1 Territorial jurisdiction
While Article 8(1) of the Administrative Procedure Act stipulates that “[e]xcept as otherwise provided for in other Acts, administrative suits shall be governed by this Act,” Article 186(1) of the Patent Act sets forth that the Patent Court has exclusive jurisdiction over revocation actions.35 Revocation actions were the only type of cases that fell under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Patent Court before the jurisdictional concentration.
8.4.1.2 Jurisdiction by court level
The Patent Court’s decision on a revocation case may be appealed to the Supreme Court (Article 186(8) of the Patent Act). In the Patent Act and other applicable laws, there is no special provision regarding the appeal procedure, so the procedures in general civil actions apply mutatis mutandis to the appeals in revocation cases (Article 8(2) of the Administrative Procedure Act).