Copycat

Copycat, or Mosquito~

Once, I heard about a bad principal.

This principal betrayed an importer by terminating a verbal contract without any compensation whatsoever – even for tailor-made inventory and supplies that were created for the marketing and promotion of the principal’s product.

This is only one of the cases I’ve heard about, so I’d like to ask you to turn your attention towards your intellectual property (IP).

In most all cases, you can apply to register your trademark and brand name domestically, in Korea, even if it’s already been registered internationally.

If the importer in the aforementioned case had done this, maybe that bad principal would have hesitated before behaving in the manner they did, knowing that they would have had to take some form of legal action to score a win for their brand or trademark in Korea.

I want to encourage all of you foreign investors to register your brand, logo, or trademark immediately to protect your business from a copycat or other such bad principal.

You can apply with less than W500,000, so why would you want to take such a risk?

In Korean IP law, the first one to file an application at the patent office is the winner – no matter who the first user or inventor was. If two or more applications for the same invention are filed on the same date, the applicants must consult with one another to try to come to an agreement on who may obtain the patent.

If no such agreement is reached or no consultation is possible, none of the applicants can obtain a patent for the invention.

The first-to-file rule is practical because it grants rights for the cost of disclosing the technology and it encourages the swift disclosure of inventions.

The rule is in accordance with the purpose of the patent system because it aims to promote industrial advancement through the aforementioned swift disclosures.

You can check trademark at http://eng.kipris.or.kr/enghome/main.jsp

For more details, please send me an email at jz@taxjz.com.