Abstract
The present study was to analyze the trend of registration of design rights in apparel products and tc point out problems of current protection law to design. The research data was total 1,850 design rights in apparel that have been registered to the Korean Patent and Trademark Office from the first design registered in March 1, 1963 through those registered in April 24, 2003. All design rights were analyzed by the year, by the type of product, and by the type of applicant. And also design rights registered under the revised design registration system(without examination) were analyzed by the trait. The results of the study were as follows: (1) Sweater & polo shirts, underpants, and the Korean traditional dress were three major single categories registered in apparel : (2) 54.3% of total design rights in apparel was registered since the legal system of design rights has been revised in March 1, 1998 : (3) Registration by individual applicant were 71.7% of total; (4) About 60% of total design rights were for aesthetic, but in some categories such as vest. brassiere, undershirts, designs for function were more frequently registered than others. And total 68 design rights for the symbol of the organization or uniform, were registered in upper outerwear and pants : (5) As problems of the current legal protection system for designs, the term of “design”(expressed in Korean), double registration of similar designs, malicious intention to register other's trademark as his/her own design. The current legal system for design rights were more used for the product that has relatively long life cycle. And the revised law has been effective in encouraging the registration of design rights. However. the current design law still has some problems to be revised to prevent design rights or trademark infringement.
