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Amendments to Trademark Laws

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Jun 14, 2013 (Newsletter Issue 9/13)
South Korea
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Amendments to Trademark Act Introduced


The National Assembly recently adopted a bill introduced by the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) that will amend the Trademark Act. The amended provisions of the act will be effective from October 6 2013 and will include the following:

- Non-use cancellation actions
Non-use cancellation actions will have some limited retroactive effect under the amended bill. An application that is blocked by a senior conflicting mark will be able to overcome this issue if the senior mark is successfully cancelled by a non-use cancellation action.

- Prior use of trade names
Under the amended act, a party that uses its name, trade name or any other personal identifiers as a trademark without bad-faith intent, in accordance with customary practices, will be able to continue such use without risking trademark infringement claims from the owner of an identical or similar registered mark, provided that such use started before the application date of the identical or similar registered mark.

- Relief measures following failure to comply with filing deadline. The amendments also include relief measures for applicants that failed to file a response to an office action within the two-month deadline. Such applicants will be granted an additional two-month period from the deadline in which to file a request to reopen the examination of their applications. However, the response to the office action must be filed in combination with the request to reopen the examination.

For more information, please check the article of Kim & Chang here

Source: Kim & Chang, South Korea