Let's continue the discussion on “Introduction to Intellectual Property and Understanding Intellectual Property”. Among them, today we will look at “trademark trends”.
1. Trademarks
Leading domestic and foreign companies are paying more attention to brand management and brand strategy than ever before. Recently, the brand identities of major companies have been replaced one after another, and the trend of brand management is also changing, such as having a separate team than the marketing team to manage the brand strategy. In the 1990s, when Samsung conducted a brand awareness survey of its company in the United States, it is said that many Americans perceived Samsung as a cart-making company. This is because Samsung advertised its company logo on an airport cart. A brand strategy that focuses only on brand exposure is not appropriate for the future generation. It is time for a more detailed and sophisticated brand management strategy.
2. Brand Trends
In 2011, Interbrand, a brand consulting group, surveyed and announced the world's top 100 brands. As a result, an interesting trend emerged, which was an industry characteristic of Information Technology, or IT. IT brands showed an absolute majority occupying 7 in the top 10, and 4 out of 5 companies with the highest “brand growth rate” were IT companies. On the other hand, the 5 companies with the highest “brand decline rate” were also IT companies. It was a survey result showing the characteristics of the IT industry that can survive only when consumer awareness and demands are quickly reflected in industry trends.
When a consumer decides whether to purchase a product, the primary criterion for judgment is the corporate brand. Therefore, in order to properly appeal to the target consumer group, a brand management strategy for a product that presents a reliable and clear vision is essential. Global companies are investing in their brand management because the stronger the established brand, the easier it is to expand into other regions (countries) or other product areas, and the dominance of the product market can be doubled through synergy with existing brands.
3. The need for trademark protection
If you go to a Walmart, for example, you can easily find other products with different names but with similar packaging, packaging methods, and packaging containers. In particular, it is easy to find similar products in items that are not very expensive, such as groceries. This is the concept of trade dress, which has recently become a hot topic in the field of intellectual property rights. When recognizing a trademark, not only the traditional character-oriented recognition, but also the special appearance of the product or the characteristic packaging itself can be recognized as a trademark. The lawsuit filed by Apple against Samsung Electronics in 2011 was also a trade dress lawsuit emphasizing the design specificity of the iPhone and iPad. As such, in the future, the era of clever trademark imitation will be opened in which trademarks will break away from traditional text-oriented trademarks and emphasize only a somewhat similar feeling. In Korea, legislation on trade dress protection is still loose, and partial protection is provided through the Trademark Act and Partial Competition Prevention Act. It seem very necessary to come up with new legislations for trade dress protection as soon as possible.
4. Trademark problems in the Internet environment
With the development of the era, transaction activities through Internet activities become more active, and various problems that cannot be solved by conventional trademark theory are raised. First of all, if counterfeit products are traded in open markets such as Gmarket, 11st, and Auction, whether the operator of the open market is responsible in addition to the seller is a recent topic of discussion. Manufacturers of well-known brands are demanding responsibility for the sale of counterfeit products of their own brands, and not only the sellers but also the open market operators are being held accountable. Due to the operation method of the open market, it is virtually impossible for the operator of the open market to check the legality of all products, that is, whether they are counterfeit or not. So this issue has come to the center of the topic. In the Copyright Act, regulations were newly established to reduce the liability of the online service provider under certain conditions when online service users infringed on their copyright. It seems necessary for Trademark Act legislation to come up with similar acts to practice trademark law appropriately.
Today we learned about “trademark trends”. Next, we will study “outline of the trademark system”.
*I am a student learning IP, not an IP expert. Translation is also a translator and my short English skills. I hope it will be helpful for those who do not have the relevant knowledge or who want to learn about IP.
*The above is what I learned from a book compiled by the Korean Intellectual Property Office and Korea Invention Promotion Association (published by Pakmungak) entitled “Introduction to Intellectual Property, Understanding Intellectual Property”.
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