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(Photo= Yonhap news) |
[Alpha Biz= Reporter Kim Sangjin] The first hearing of a civil lawsuit filed by a former KT&G researcher, who claims he did not receive appropriate compensation for his role in inventing the world's first electronic cigarette technology, will take place on the 17th.
According to legal sources on the 15th, the Daejeon District Court's Civil Division 12 has scheduled the first hearing for the lawsuit over compensation for the inventor's work filed by Kwak Dae-geun against the company.
The amount claimed by Kwak is 2.8 trillion won, which, according to his legal representatives, is the highest amount in South Korean judicial history for an individual or single case.
Due to the large claim, the total registration tax to be paid to the court amounts to 15 billion won.
The claim amount was calculated based on the combined global sales of electronic cigarettes from KT&G, an overseas tobacco company (referred to as Company A) that appears to have borrowed Kwak's technology, and Company A's domestic electronic cigarette sales, totaling over 80 trillion won.
According to the lawsuit, Kwak joined the Korea Ginseng and Tobacco Research Institute, KT&G's predecessor, in 1991 and began developing an electrically heated cigarette device. In July 2005, he developed a prototype electronic cigarette device equipped with a heating element that directly heats tobacco and filed a patent.
He subsequently completed the development of a complete set of electronic cigarettes, including the heating element, device, and sticks.
Kwak claims that he did not receive appropriate compensation for his work-related inventions after leaving the company due to restructuring in 2010.
Since his departure, he received only a 20 million won advance and a monthly salary of 6.25 million won for a year under a technical advisor contract, which he argues is merely a salary under the advisory contract and not related to invention compensation.
Alphabiz Reporter Kim SangJin(letyou@alphabiz.co.kr)
