A Comparative Study of Trade Dress in the U.S. and South Korea: Rethinking on the Laws and Precedents in the Apple v. Samsung

Trade dress originally included the packaging or dressing of products, however in this time it has been extended to put together the impression of design of products. Product configuration, the design and shape of the product itself, may also be considered a form of trade dress. The Lanham Act protects trade dress if it serves the same source-identifying function as a trademark. In U.S., trade dress was developed continuously for a long time and some significant case suggested guidelines reflecting the modern industry. In Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v Samara Brothers, Inc., or TrafFix Devices, Inc. v. Marketing Displays, Inc., the Supreme Court delivered certain idea of trade dress to protect consumers’ right to choose and producers’ reputation as a intellectual property. In South Korea, the history of trade dress is much shorter than U.S. and the way to approach to issue of trade dress also pretty different. However South Korea also accepted many concepts of trade dress from U.S. and embraced their way. This article will compare the trade dress system between U.S. and South Korea and examine the peculiarity for both countries’ system. Especially Apple v. Samsung, will be an interesting example to compare the each country’s standards for trade dress. Finally this article will provide suggestion to help trade dress policy for a product’s configuration under current trademark law and unfair competition law

Small Pool for Big Data: Researching for Sustainable Data Focused on Open Government Data (OGD) Movement

When Sir Isaac Newton said his famous statement standing on the shoulders of giants, it was a modest phrase and explained the necessity of sharing knowledge or information to make the next intellectual progress. The data industry is now the fastest developing area, but many ambiguities are a subject in law. The protection of data is a fascinating and still unsolved challenge for intellectual property law. Data is essential in the matter of new industry and our lifestyle at individual, corporate, and institutional levels. And the legal protection needs to work to offer vivid transactions of data for creative interactions. However, many enterprises consider data an asset for business profit as the data industry grows vast and fast. Data raises diverse policy debates that arise in the better-known intellectual property areas, for instance, copyrights, unfair competition, and trade secret. The vague aspects of data implicate a number of intellectual property approaches. It also extends to the economic problem \u27tragedy of anti-commons\u27 that fragmented ownership is disrupting sound usage. In this regard, Open Governmental Data (OGD) is one way to resolve inefficiency in the data industry. The government collects massive personal data and reproduces datasets in the process of administration. Many governments give back the public data for private sectors anticipating the data works for new enterprise seed money. This work looks at three considerations about the legal aspects of data. At first, we will see the necessity of big data in current and reasons for the government to pay attention to open data to the public. The data industry market\u27s inefficiency discourages cumulative innovation in our society and approaches the benefits of sharing data in the private economy or OGD movement. Second, the paper conducts principles of OGD and takes a functional approach in analyzing the related IP laws in database protection and public accessibility. Interestingly various governments are opening data that compares various OGD models from different countries led by other stakeholders, including government, large companies, small to medium enterprises ( SMEs ), and how they work as a member of OGD. Finally, it critiques the current OGD movement and suggests that corporate OGD strategies granting autonomous would help resolve the anti-commons of IP in the big data industry

A Comparative Study of Trade Dress in the U.S. and South Korea: Rethinking on the Laws and Precedents in the Apple v. Samsung

Trade dress originally included the packaging or dressing of products, however in this time it has been extended to put together the impression of design of products. Product configuration, the design and shape of the product itself, may also be considered a form of trade dress. The Lanham Act protects trade dress if it serves the same source-identifying function as a trademark. In U.S., trade dress was developed continuously for a long time and some significant case suggested guidelines reflecting the modern industry. In Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v Samara Brothers, Inc., or TrafFix Devices, Inc. v. Marketing Displays, Inc., the Supreme Court delivered certain idea of trade dress to protect consumers’ right to choose and producers’ reputation as a intellectual property. In South Korea, the history of trade dress is much shorter than U.S. and the way to approach to issue of trade dress also pretty different. However South Korea also accepted many concepts of trade dress from U.S. and embraced their way. This article will compare the trade dress system between U.S. and South Korea and examine the peculiarity for both countries’ system. Especially Apple v. Samsung, will be an interesting example to compare the each country’s standards for trade dress. Finally this article will provide suggestion to help trade dress policy for a product’s configuration under current trademark law and unfair competition law