Trademark registration in South Korea

Trademark Application in South Korea

How to register a trademark in South Korea? To obtain exclusive rights to a company name, you should fill out the form on our website online. Registration of a trademark in the Republic of Korea is available to individuals and legal entities. Profitmark International Patent Bureau specializes in the registration of intellectual property. We have official representatives in 120 countries. Using our service to register a trademark in South Korea you can receive:

1. Our consulting support.
2. Trademark verification in the Republic of Korea
3. Preparation of a full package of documents for obtaining registration.
4. The official filing of the Application for registration with the patent office in the Republic of Korea.
5. Accompanying your application with an accredited patent attorney.
6. If necessary, we can file petitions or other additional documents and applications in the process of registering a trademark.
7. Obtaining a Certificate for a trademark.

High competence of our experts and online interaction are the main advantages of our company service. Specially developed software allows us to accept and process the applications in automatic mode. We use exactly this option in countries where online patent filing is available. This allows assigning quickly priority to the applicant.

You can get access to the personal account on the site, which will display complete information about the process. You will be aware of any changes in the pendency of application steps by sending a notification letter via the specified email.

Trademarks are protected in South Korea under the Trademark Act. It does not protect unregistered marks, providing protection of well-known and famous marks making the registration of an identical or similar mark impossible.

Trademark Search in South Korea

We always recommend to make a trademark search before the application. It will help you to avoid the conflict with already existing trademarks.

Trademark registration process in South Korea

You should file the following documents to the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO):

• an application (should be written in Korean) with your name and address (including the name of an executive officer, if you are a juristic person); your trademark; the applicable goods and class (The Republic of Korea adopted the Nice Classification on March 1, 1998); the date of filing;
• 10 specimens of your trademark (8cm x 8cm or smaller);
• a power of attorney, if necessary.

If your application satisfies the basic requirements (it contains all the data), the Korean Intellectual Property Office assigns an application number and examines it against the formality requirements of the Trademark Act. This examination generally takes about 5 months from its filing date. If an examiner finds no grounds for rejection of a trademark application, he will render a decision to publish the trademark application.

When a trademark application is published in the "Trademark Publication Gazette," any person may file an opposition within 2 months.

You can apply for establishment registration of the trademark right after paying the registration fee within the specified period.

The protection period of a trademark right is 10 years from the date of registration. The renewal of trademarks in South Korea could be done after every 10 years. You just have to file your application for the renewal with KIPO.

Cost of trademark registration in South Korea

Here are the trademark registration fees in South Korea:

trademark application fee for each class - KRW 62 000;

additional fee per number of designated goods exceeding 20 for each class - KRW 2 000;

registration for establishment of right – KRW 211 000;

additional fee for each class (in case of multiple class application) – KRW 211 000;

additional fee per number of designated goods exceeding 20 for each class – KRW 2 000;

renewal of registration – KRW 310 000.

If you decide to register a trademark in South Korea - just file an online application!