Date: July 21, 2013
Source: KIPO
The Korean Trademark Act was amended on April 5, 2013 and the amended Act will be enforced from October 6, 2013. Followings are the backgrounds of the amendment and the summary of major amendments:
1. Backgrounds of Amendments
1.1 To improve a trademark cancellation system in order to establish a fair trademark use order*, and to loosen the requirements of prior use right in order to protect small merchants from the trademark brokers**:
* prevent an occurrence of a problem that the Petitioner of a cancellation trial based on non-use against a registered trademark cannot obtain a trademark right for a mark which is similar to or same with the cancelled trademark by the act of the owner of the to be cancelled trademark such as, when a cancellation trial based on non-use is filed against a trademark, the owner of the trademark has a third party file a cancellation trial based on non-use against the to be cancelled trademark under a conspiracy with it and thereafter abandon the trademark and has the third party file a trademark application just one day after the abandoned date.
** prevent an often occurrence of an act of demanding a royalty after having registered a trademark which is same as a trade name of a small merchant who has used it in advance.
1.2 To raise applicant’s convenience by enabling a request for continuation of a procedure as a remedy for a non-observance of a time limit*, and to conduct a prior hearing at the time of issuing a business suspension order.
* the Article 14 of the Singapore Treaty which provides a continuation of a procedure allows a remedy for the case where a time limit expired.
2.1 Improvement of the Trademark Cancellation System based on Non-use (Article 7 and 8)
2.1.1 A mark which is similar to a cancelled mark will be allowed without reefing an application for it after the cancellation has been finalized by changing a point of time judging the similarity of a mark to prior registered marks from the time of filing an application to the time of deciding a registration.
2.1.2 The competition among petitioners of cancellation trials and abuse of the cancellation system will be prevented by abolishing a priority term of 6 months for the successful petitioner of the cancellation trial.
2.2 Introduction of a remedy for non-observance of a time limit
2.2.1 When an applicant did not submit an Argument by a prescribed time limit, if he/she files an Argument and a Continuation of Procedure within 2 months from the expiry date of the time limit, the relevant procedure will be re-proceeded.
DATE :
13-08-07
