Region: South Korea

In <i>Sanrio Co Ltd v Dong-A Pencil Co Ltd</i>, the Seoul High Court has affirmed a lower court decision finding that Dong-A had registered the trademark KITTY, and the Korean translation thereof, in order to profit from consumer confusion between its marks and Sanrio's famous HELLO KITTY mark.

11 March 2003

The Korean Intellectual Property Office has announced that it will submit to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade a proposal to join the Madrid Protocol. The ministry is expected to accept the proposal, allowing Korea to become a signatory by as early as April this year.

27 January 2003

The Korean Trade Commission has ruled that the importation and sale of genuine computer games infringed the rights of an exclusive trademark licensee under the new Unfair Trade Practices Act. The decision provides guidance for future parallel import cases in Korea, particularly those involving commission proceedings.

22 January 2003

The Seoul District Court has upheld a decision by a WIPO panel ordering the domain name 'sonybank.com' to be transferred to the Sony Corporation. The court found that the registrant agreed to have disputes settled under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy, and that Sony had the right to sue the Korean national under Korean law.

12 December 2002

In an attempt to combat rampant cybersquatting, Korea's Ministry of Information and Communication has announced that it will revise the legislation relating to domain names, making cybersquatting a crime. The new law will also give the Korea Network Information Centre a greater role in managing the domain name system.

13 November 2002

The Ministry of Information and Communication has established the Domain Name Dispute Resolution Committee in order to deal with the increasing number of registrations for '.kr' domains names and the accompanying rise in cybersquatting. It also plans to enact a new law to provide systematic management of domain name addresses.

07 October 2002

To cope with some of the problems associated with the rapid development of information technology, the Korean government has enacted a broad piece of legislation to regulate domain names, protect privacy, discourage cybercrime and control spam.

14 February 2002

Eastman Kodak and Kodak Korea have won a ruling from the Seoul District Court that the defendant's promotion and sale of photography-related products and services on the website 'kodak.co.kr' infringed the trademark rights of the plaintiffs and constituted an act of unfair competition.

28 January 2002

A Korean court has issued an injunction preventing the transfer of domain names as ordered by a French court. The decision suggests that a court not located at the place of the registrant or the registrar does not have jurisdiction to order the transfer of a domain name in another jurisdiction.

31 October 2001