A man in his 70s arrested on suspicion of setting fires at two buildings housing patent law firms in Seoul's Yeoksam-dong, Gangnam District, has admitted to the crime, telling police he acted "to scare them" over a grievance involving his patents. Police identified the points of origin through a site examination the same day.
The Suseo Police Station said in a notice to the media on the morning of the 21st that it conducted a first round of questioning overnight in connection with the arson that occurred in Yeoksam-dong the previous day, and that the suspect largely admitted to the acts.
According to police, the man, identified only as A, prepared the crime deliberately, buying two large plastic containers, a lighter and flammable liquid near his home in Seoul's Gangseo District on the 16th, four days before the fires. Closed-circuit television footage near his residence captured him carrying flammable material in both hands as he left home and took a taxi to Yeoksam-dong, where the fires were set.
In questioning, A claimed the two patent firms he targeted had defrauded him by issuing false patent registration certificates. He also said he wanted to scare them and bring the matter to public attention. After being caught near Dongmyo Station the previous day and taken to Suseo Police Station, A raised his voice to reporters, saying a patent law firm had defrauded him and that he had filed a patent in 2000 only to be cheated.
Police believe A acted on unfounded suspicions about his patents. According to the Korean Intellectual Property Office, A applied on April 17, 2019, for a design patent on a strength-training device, which was registered on Aug. 23. His agent at the time was a patent attorney at a firm on the third floor of the Shinmyung Building, one of the buildings damaged by the fires. A filed another design patent application for exercise equipment on Feb. 12, 2020, and it was registered on Dec. 4. The agent for that design was a patent firm on the fourth floor of the Hanyang Building, the other building damaged. Both designs were also registered in A's name overseas, including in the United States and Brazil.
A had asked a patent firm to register his trademarks abroad and was told that only online certificates would be issued. Believing the patent attorney had stolen his trademarks because no paper certificate was provided, A grew suspicious. He was known to be fixated on the documents, hanging paper certificates in his home. In December 2022, four years ago, he visited the same offices, sprayed gasoline on employees and threatened them with a lighter and scissors, drawing a two-year-and-six-month prison sentence for special intimidation from the Seoul Central District Court in April 2023. Rights to both designs remain registered to A.
Having established the motive, police visited stores near A's home on the morning of the 21st to check when he bought the lighter. They also carried out a second site examination at the Hanyang and Shinmyung buildings in Yeoksam-dong to determine where the fires started. A fire official said after completing the examination at about 12:20 p.m. that the points of origin had been narrowed down to some extent, adding that confirmation would come through comprehensive investigative conclusions later. The official said the examination found that the amount of flammable liquid used and the way it was spread were similar at both buildings. Police plan to question A a second time and then seek an arrest warrant on charges of arson of an occupied structure causing injury.