Although Korean commentators have taken the view that a doctrine of equivalents should be recognized in Korea, the courts have traditionally taken a strict view of the scope of patent claims, for example holding a claim to a chemical reaction defined in a claim as not being infringed because the alleged infringer, although using the same reaction, had added a catalyst, since the catalyst added a new technical feature. The new Patent Court which commenced operations in March 1998 to hear appeals from the Patent Office, has now expressed its view on the issue, which is subject to an appeal to the Supreme Court. Under Korean law it is possible to request the Industrial Property Office to express its view as to the scope of protection afforded by a patent. This occurred in the case of Wo-Ho Choi v. Sam-In Co which never reached the issue of equivalents. The decision was appealed to the Patent Court. This Court affirmed the existence of a doctrine of equivalents in Korean patent law holding that something falling outside the literal scope of a patent claim could nevertheless be an infringement of that claim if (1) the element of the alleged infringement which replaced an element set out in the claim performed substantially the same function in substantially the same way to produce substantially the same effect as the element of the claim it replaced and (2) the substitution used techniques that were known at the time of filing the patent application giving rise to the patent in suit or could easily have been made by one skilled in the art from techniques that were known at that date. An additional requirement is that the applicant should not have consciously omitted what is now claimed to be an infringement from its claims during prosecution of the application giving rise to the patent.