Renewal Of Jointly-Owned Trademarks Will Soon Be Less Cumbersome In Korea

An amendment to the Trademark Act, effective from October 24, 2019, will remove the current stipulation that all owners of a jointly-owned trademark registration must apply for renewal together. Going forward, it will be sufficient if any one of the owners applies to renew the mark.

The Korean IP Office ("KIPO") has stated that the rationale for the change is to avoid situations where renewal is not possible despite a mark being used by one owner who cannot contact the other owner(s) for various legitimate reasons, as well as more malicious circumstances such as one owner refusing to agree to renewal of the jointly-owned mark in order to secretly apply for an identical trademark application alone. According to KIPO, of 179 jointly-owned trademarks for which renewal was refused in the three-year period prior to April 2019, some 43 instances (23%) were due to the renewal application not being made by all joint owners.

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