동물 캐릭터 표장에 대한 중첩적 보호 -대법원 2015. 12. 10. 선고 2015도11550판결을 중심으로- = Overlapping Protection of an Animal Character Mark Based on Copyright, Trademark, and Unfair Competition Laws in Korea -Focused on Korean Supreme Court, 2015 Do 11550 (10 December 2015)-

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This criminal case shows how violation of intellectual property rights based on an animal character can be dealt with by the Korean courts. In the case where the defendant, a Korean, was accused of trademark infringement on the ground that he had imported and sold the dolls which attached the trademark, “□”(hereinafter “trademark used by the defendant B”), identical or similar to the trademark “□”(hereinafter “AA’s trademark”) registered by the trademark holder “AA” for dolls, the two trademarks were similar to each other because the trademark used by the defendant B is likely to be misleading or to cause consumers’ confusion with respect to source of goods when the court took into account impression, memory, and association of traders or ordinary consumers. Also, he was accused of copyright infringement and violation of unfair competition law.
In this case, crimes committed due to violation of copyright law and unfair competition law constitute compound crimes under Article 40 of the Korean Criminal Act while the crime committed due to trademark infringement and the other crimes constitutes substantive concurrent crimes under Article 37 of the Korean Criminal Act because of difference of constituent requirements and type of acts.
In addition, this case is meaningful in that art works can be protected under the Korean Copyright Act even if the works for applied art which are not protectable under the Japanese Copyright Act.