The head of a major institution in charge of the performance of a research and development project, which is a research and development project in the fields of science and technology and which is a research and development project in which a central administrative agency specified research and development projects based on Acts and subordinate statutes and fully or partially contribute to the research and development project, or which is a research and development project in the field of science and technology supported by public funds, has a duty to pay at least 20 percent of the share of government contributions (30 percent in cases where the major institution is a profit-making corporation) out of the collected royalties to a specialized institution, pursuant to Article 19 of the former Regulations on the Management, etc. of National Research and Development Projects (amended by Presidential Decree No. 19872, Feb. 8, 2007; hereinafter referred to as the "Management Regulations"), and Article 34 of the former Guidelines for the Operation of Research and Development Projects (amended by Presidential Decree No. 2002-50, Feb. 1, 2008; hereinafter the same shall apply).

According to the reasoning of the judgment below, the court below held that (1) in light of the aforementioned provisions to exempt non-profit institutions from royalties and to encourage them to use them as performance compensation, etc. for researchers who participated in the development of the research task or those who contributed to technology transfer and commercialization, the research institute’s intent to develop technology shall not be included in the scope of application of the above technology exemption provisions in the case of the major institution in charge of administrative management or support of detailed tasks, without direct contribution to technology development; (2) in the electricity industry development project in 2005, the Plaintiff was designated as the major institution of “the development project for the integrated resources management system” and the first specific tasks of “the implementation of the integrated resources management system”, which are the first specific tasks performed by the Plaintiff, and the first specific tasks performed by the Plaintiff, are exempt from the duty of integrated management and payment of royalties, based on the comprehensive technical research and development guidelines of the 2nd unit, which are the main institution in charge of industrial technology development and the first integrated technology management, and thus, the Plaintiff’s specific tasks are not included in the relevant specialized institution.

The above fact-finding and determination by the court below are justifiable in light of the following circumstances acknowledged by the contents of each Act and the reasoning of the judgment below and the records, namely, Article 34 of the above Operational Guidelines and Article 10 of the General Convention, where a project is evaluated as "sexuality", and the Minister of Commerce, Industry and Energy may collect royalties from the managing agency under the General Convention regardless of the attribution of the outcome. Thus, according to the General Convention, the Plaintiff appears to play a role of collecting royalties from the managing agency and paying them to the Minister of Commerce, Industry and Energy. In so doing, the court below did not err by exceeding the bounds of the principle of free evaluation of evidence in violation of logical and empirical rules or by misapprehending the legal principles on the interpretation of the subject of exemption

Therefore, the appeal is dismissed, and the costs of appeal are assessed against the losing party. It is so decided as per Disposition by the assent of all participating Justices on the bench.

Justices Kim Yong-deok (Presiding Justice)