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영어

Many countries protect unregistered well-known marks in accordance with their international obligations under the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property and the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (the TRIPs Agreement). Well-known trade and service marks enjoy protection against signs which are considered a reproduction, imitation or translation of that mark provided that they are likely to cause confusion in the relevant sector of the public. Well-known marks are usually protected, irrespective of whether they are registered or not, in respect of goods and services which are identical with, or similar to, those for which they have gained their reputation. In many countries, they are also, under certain conditions protected for dissimilar goods and services. In Korea, there are two laws related to the protection of well-known trademarks, Trademark law and Unfair Competition Prevention Law. Even though a mark has been registered in accordance with the Trademark law, in the case that it is famous or well-known mark of a third party defined by the Unfair Competition Prevention Law, there could be conflicting legal issues. To tackle the conflict, Section 15 of the Unfair Competition Prevention Law provides that in cases of any conflict or inconsistence the Trademark Law applies instead(pre-emption). But Supreme Court of Korea has interpreted Section 15 differently from its literal meaning. To find out the appropriate way of solve such problems, this paper examines the relationship between Trademark Law and Unfair Competition Prevention Law.