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The Ministry of Intellectual Property (MOIP) will issue a legislative notice of a partial amendment to the Enforcement Rules of the Korea Design Act.(News Letter No. 585) |
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KH |
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2026-10-01 |
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1. The Ministry of Intellectual Property (MOIP) will issue a legislative notice of a partial amendment to the Enforcement Rules of the Korea Design Act.
- The drawings for designated Korean characters, “Hangul”, and Chinese characters, “Hanja”, will be greatly simplified, and a guidance to prevent errors in submitting 3D drawings will be strengthened.
MOIP announced that, from September 21 (Mon) to November 2 (Mon), it would issue the legislative notice of the partial amendment to the Enforcement Rules of the Design Act to greatly reduce the number of fonts and the number of drawings to be submitted when an application for a font design, and to strengthen the guidance to reduce errors that may occur during the process of filing 3D drawings.
This amendment was prepared to reduce the burden of making drawings for an applicant of an application for a character font design, to improve the convenience in filing an application, and to reduce a correction or supplement that occurs in an application or examination process.
A font design is a set of typographic characters (including numbers, symbols, etc.) in a form with common characteristics to be used in recording, display or printing, etc. When filing an application for a font design, it requires that a basic character drawing, a sample sentence drawing and a representative character drawing be submitted.
<(1) This amendment is to improve the system of filing an application for a font design by allowing the application with less characters.>
At present, to file an application for a font design, it is required that 500 designated characters in 5 drawings for “Hangul” and 900 designated characters in 9 drawings for “Hanja” be presented. However, there have been opinions that these requirements are inefficient since some character structures are repetitive and structurally unbalanced and the large number of characters places a heavy drafting burden on applicants.
In this regard, this amendment is to secure the necessary structure to understand the characteristics of a font while reducing redundant compositions, thereby simplifying the number of the designated characters from 500 to 209 and the number of drawings from 5 to 2 for “Hangul” and from 900 to 310 and from 9 to 2 for “Hanja”.
Through this amendment, it is expected to greatly reduce the burden of drawings for an applicant of a font design application and to more efficiently review the formative information required for examination.
<(2) This amendment is to strengthen the guidance to check whether a font design is properly presented before submitting 3D drawings.>
When filing an application for a design, not only standard 2D drawings but also 3D modeling files (3D drawings) can be submitted as drawings.
However, due to the production program or file compatibility, etc., 3D drawings could not open in the examination viewer or some components might not be properly visible, thereby presenting errors in design expression and therefore, there has been a concern that an applicant might face unexpected disadvantages.
This amendment is to strengthen guidance so that an applicant can check whether a design is properly expressed in the viewer for examination before submitting 3D drawings, and if it is not properly displayed, an applicant can submit alternative means, such as other 3D drawing files or 2D drawings.
2. The number of patent applications and trademark applications filed in the first half of 2026 increased by 29.2% and 18.6%, respectively.
- Korean applicants were active in filing overseas patent applications.
- The number of applications filed by individuals in the first half of 2026 increased by 134% compared to the same period of the previous year, the number of applications filed by new applicants increased by 74%.
As a result of MOIP’s analysis of the trends of applications for intellectual property (IP) filed in the first half of 2026, the number of patent applications filed by individuals and new applicants increased and the number of Korean patent and trademark applications reached record highs. The number of overseas patent applications by Korean applicants also significantly increased in major countries.
The number of Korean patent applications filed in the first half of 2026 was 141,259, the number of Korean trademark applications was 180,787, reaching record highs. Their increase rates were 29.2% for patent applications and 18.6% for trademark applications, compared to the same period of the previous year (109,322 patent applications and 152,419 trademark applications).
By industry, the boom in the advanced industries, such as semiconductors and artificial intelligence (AI), etc., has led to an increase in applications in the computer, software (SW) and information service areas. For patent applications, the ‘computer programming and system integration and management’ industry, which ranked 1st in the proportion of applications, expanded its proportion of total applications to 16.0% in the first half of 2026 from 10.5% in the first half of 2025. For trademark applications, 9,635 applications were filed in the ‘computer and science and technology service’ industry (Class. 42), showing an increase of 64.2% compared to the same period of 2025 (5,867 applications).
The number of patent applications (33,819) filed by individuals in the first half of 2026 increased by 134.0% compared to the same period of 2025 (14,454), the proportion of the patent applications filed by individuals in total patent applications rose from 13.2% to 23.9%. Notably, among the patent applications filed by individuals, the proportion of the applications (22,559) directly filed by individuals without agents greatly increased from 28.8% in the first half of 2023 to 66.7% in the first half of 2026. This is estimated that the widespread use of generative AI enhanced individuals’ accessibility to the directly filing of an application.
The number of patent applications (25,726) filed by new applicants, who filed for the first time the applications, also increased by 74.2% compared to the same period of the previous year (14,769), thereby significantly outpaced the total patent application increase rate of 29.2%. The proportion of new applicants among the total applicants rose from 32.2% to 36.9% by 4.7%p. For trademark applications, the number of the applications (69,134) filed by new applicants increased by 31.8% compared to the same period of the previous year (52,446).
The number of patent applications (165,567) filed by the applicants with Korean nationality in the 5 advanced intellectual property offices (IP5) increased by 30.1% compared to the same period of the previous year (127,247). The number of patent applications filed in each of USPTO, EPO, JPO and CNIPA increased by 10.4%, 14.9%, 14.8% and 1.8%, respectively, compared to the same period of the previous year. Notably, in USPTO, EPO and JPO, the increase rate of Korean applicants was significantly more pronounced than that of applicants with other nationalities. This shows that Korean companies’ expansion into overseas markets has been growing.
3. MOIP identifies illegal and counterfeit product distribution channels through the first joint investigation with the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS)’s special judicial police.
- Domestic brokers distributing counterfeit Chinese cosmetics and health functional supplements were caught.
On September 17, 2026, MOIP and MFDS announced that they caught a broker “A”, who illegally importing, into Korea, counterfeit cosmetics, health functional supplements and water purifier filters which were manufactured in China, and illegally distributing them online open markets as genuine products, and transferred the case to the prosecution.
In this case, MOIP and MFDS special judicial police got information that famous cosmetics, health functional supplements, water purifier filters and electronic products which were different from genuine products, packaging materials and certification marks, etc. were distributed in the online open markets, such as Coupang, Naver, etc., and both organizations’ special judicial police conducted a close joint investigation to identify the illegal distribution channels.
As a result of investigation, the distribution broker “A” conspired with a manufacturer (shipper) in Shenzhen, China, to sell 61 types (corresponding to 4.5 billion Korea Won) of counterfeit cosmetics and health function supplements, etc. from October 2024 to November 2025 through a domestic online open market. It was also uncovered that “A” stored 87 types of illegal products (worth 1.3 billion Korea Won), such as counterfeit products in the logistics warehouse operated by “A”.
As a result of comparing the products stored in the warehouse with genuine ones, those were different from the genuine ones in terms of ►packaging materials and printing details, ►container shapes and sizes, and ►product formulations and colors, thereby confirming that those were counterfeit Chinese products and all of those products were confiscated.
The counterfeit product distribution broker, “A”, rented and managed the logistics warehouse located in Chungbuk and stored the counterfeit products sent by the shipper by international express cargo and overseas couriers in a hub warehouse. The shipper residing in China delivered the products ordered from Coupang and Naver, etc. to buyers nationwide by courier, distributing about 83,000 counterfeit products (corresponding to about 4.5 billion Korea Won).
In addition, in the case of counterfeit Brita water purifier filters, it was revealed that they were actively involved in selling counterfeit products by removing the original ‘made in China’ labels and replacing them with new ones that read ‘made in Germany.’
The Chinese counterfeit products caught for violating the Cosmetics Act, Health Functional Foods Act, and Trademark Act were: ►28 types of famous cosmetics, such as Estée lauder and SK-II, as well as Korean brands, such as Celedicx, Gahi, and Joseon Beauty, ►4 types of quasi-drugs, such as Re:diett toothpaste, etc., ►3 types of health functional supplements, such as Denamark’s probiotics story, Korea Eundan multivitamin all-in-one, etc., and ►44 types of undeclared imported foods, totaling about 97,000 items valued at 5.4 billion Korea Won.
Additionally, the products violating the Trademark Act totaled about 4,000 worth about 400 million Korea Won including: ►4 types of Brita water purifier filters, AirPods, and PlayStation joysticks, ►4 types of footwear products, such as Birkenstock slippers, Nike sneakers, etc., and ►2 types of golf supplies, such as Titleist, PXG, etc.
As a result of the detailed testing of the 12 types of seized functional cosmetics and health functional supplements, since functional ingredients in cosmetics and indicator substances in health functional supplements were not detected at all and counterfeit products do not undergo quality inspections during the manufacturing process, there are concerns that the functional efficacy and safety expected by consumers cannot be guaranteed.
4. The intellectual property cooperation was included in the ‘Seoul Declaration’ of the 1st Korea and Central Asia Summit.
- MOIP and 5 Central Asian countries signed a series of Memorandum of Understanding (MOUs) on comprehensive intellectual property cooperation and held high-level meetings.
- K-trademark export companies are expected to be supported and the damage caused by intellectual property infringement is expected to be reduced.
According to MOIP, as the intellectual property sector has been officially included in the ‘Seoul Declaration’ of the 1st summit of Korea-Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan), the foundation for intellectual property cooperation with Central Asia has been laid.
The Seoul Declaration’ includes the content of expanding cooperation in the areas of intellectual property policy, examination, capacity building, protection, etc., under the recognition that intellectual property is a key driving force behind national economic growth and promotion of innovation. It also includes the content of welcoming the signing of the MOU for comprehensive cooperation in the intellectual property area and establishing a predictable and trust-based economic environment between Korea and Central Asia.
To practically implement the agreements reached between the leaders, during this summit, MOIP held a ceremony to exchange ‘memoranda of understanding (MOUs) on comprehensive cooperation in the intellectual property area with the 3 countries making state visits, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, in the presence of the leaders of both nations. MOIP also signed a MOU with each of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and held a ceremony to exchange it, thereby completing the intellectual property cooperation network with all 5 countries.
The signed MOU primarily focused on cooperation in the areas of intellectual property examination, protection, utilization, informatization and capacity building. Through this, MOIP will actively support K-brand companies in cosmetics, food, fashion and automobiles, etc. to expand into local markets and strengthen the cooperation in the intellectual property protection and enforcement areas, so that it is expected to reduce their intellectual property infringement damages in Central Asia.
On September 15, 2026, high-level meetings with Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan were also held. In the separate meetings with Hojamyrat Geldimyradow (Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers and Minister of Finance and Economy of the Republic of Turkmenistan) and Gulzat Isamatova (Minister of Science, Higher Education and Innovation of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan), they discussed specific cooperation measures in the intellectual property area after the signing of the MOU.
5. MOIP published the special judicial police’s investigation results for the first half of 2026.
- The number of technology infringement cases forwarded for prosecution increased by 33% and the number of counterfeit product distribution cases increased by 32%.
- Remarkable results were achieved in protecting the national core technologies and designs and cracking down on counterfeit products, etc.
According to MOIP, in the first half of 2026, intensive investigations were conducted into intellectual property infringement crimes, such as technology leaks, technology theft, and counterfeit products, etc., and a total of 347 people were referred to the prosecution. This is a 32% increase compared to the same period of the previous year (262 people).
In technology-related crimes, 161 people were referred to the prosecution, making a 33% increase compared to the same period of the previous year (121 people). Design infringement offenders showed the largest increase, rising 137% (from 27 to 64 people), and patent and utility model infringement offenders also increased by 16% (from 38 to 44 people).
Notably, in January, MOIP, in close cooperation with the National Intelligence Service (NIS) and the prosecution, intercepted an attempt to leak national core technologies, such as solid-state battery development information, overseas, and arrested foreign offenders. In February, through a persistent investigation including analyzing over 23,000 pages of investigative records involving eyewear imitation crimes over about a year, MOIP achieved the results that for the first time in a product shape imitation case, the suspect was arrested and criminal proceeds amounting to 7.8 billion Korea Won were preserved for collection.
In counterfeit product crimes, 186 people were referred to the prosecution, increasing by 32% compared to the same period of the previous year (141 people). A total of 44,482 counterfeit products worth 61.98 billion Korea Won were confiscated.
Notably, MOIP strengthened crackdowns on counterfeit products, focusing on commercial tourist districts popular with foreigners, by reflecting a significant increase in foreign visitors riding the global expansion of K-culture. As a result, in January, MOIP cracked down on vendors selling counterfeit products to foreign tourists and confiscated 3,702 counterfeit products worth about 18.2 billion Korea Won in genuine retail value to be forwarded to the prosecution.
In addition, MOIP actively responded to the distribution of counterfeit products related to Korean Wave cultural resources, such as K-celebrity fan merchandise, etc., thereby confiscating about 27,000 counterfeit products of K-celebrity fan merchandise including BTS, over February and March.
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As intellectual property infringement crimes have continued to rise every year, this trend was shown to continue in 2026. The number of cases filed in the first half of 2026 (based on the number of suspects) totaled 470, recording a 21% increase compared to 388 in the same period of the previous year.
In the technology leakage and theft (trade secret) cases, the total number of suspects increased by 180% (from 15 to 42 people), and the number of suspects per case also increased by more than 2 times (from 1.7 to 3.5). This suggests that amid intensifying international technology competition, technology leakage and theft crimes have been becoming increasingly organized and sophisticated.
In the counterfeit product crimes, the increase in criminal complaints and accusations (198%, from 47 to 140 cases) was particularly pronounced, compared to reports (6%, from 70 to 74 cases), and this indicates that the trademark owners are actively enforcing their rights.
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