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Photo courtesy of Yonhap News |
[Alpha Biz= Kim Jisun] Seoul, South Korea — A South Korean appellate court has broadened the scope of trade secret violations recognized in the high-profile legal dispute between Nexon Korea and Ironmace, ruling that Ironmace unlawfully used information from Nexon’s unreleased project “P3” to develop the game “Dark and Darker.” However, the damages awarded were reduced to KRW 5.7 billion, down from the lower court’s assessment.
On December 4, the Seoul High Court’s Civil Division 5-2 ordered Ironmace to pay approximately KRW 5.7 billion (USD 4.3 million) in damages to Nexon. The appellate panel determined that a wider range of P3-related files and materials qualified as trade secrets compared with the first-instance ruling.
The court identified P3 development programs, data sources, program source code, and build files—transferred to a personal server between April 6 and June 23, 2021—as protectable trade secrets. It found that former Nexon employees who later joined Ironmace improperly used these materials in the development of Dark and Darker.
The judges also extended the trade secret protection period recognized in the lower court, concluding that the information’s protected status lasted two years and six months, from the developers’ departure in July or August 2021 until January 31, 2023. The court estimated that P3 trade secrets contributed 15% to the development of Dark and Darker, leading to the KRW 5.7 billion damages figure.
However, as in the first-instance ruling, the court did not find copyright infringement, concluding that the expressive elements of Nexon’s P3 project and Ironmace’s Dark and Darker were not substantially similar.
The reduction in damages was explained by a shift in legal interpretation:
“Unlike the first-instance court, which relied on damage presumption provisions under the Unfair Competition Prevention Act, this court directly calculated the damages using objective data based on the presumption that the defendant’s gains correspond to the plaintiff’s losses,” the bench stated.
Alphabiz Reporter Kim Jisun(stockmk2020@alphabiz.co.kr)
