Can a brand owner sue a search engine because its trademark shows up in search results? On September 22, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said no, affirming the dismissal of a trademark suit against Google. The reasoning behind that decision maps closely onto how Korean courts have drawn the line…
If you advise clients entering the Korean market, one question comes up before almost any filing: what is already on the register in Korea? The good news is that you do not need a local subscription database to find out. Korea’s official search platform, KIPRIS, is free, comprehensive, and available in English, yet many foreign…
Patagonia sued the drag performer and environmental activist Pattie Gonia in January 2026, seeking one dollar in damages. The nominal figure was the point: the company said it was protecting a mark, not pursuing money. What actually triggered the suit was not the persona, which had existed since 2018: it was a 2025 trademark application…
In April 2026 the US Supreme Court declined to hear Curtin v. United Trademark Holdings, ending a six-year effort by a law professor and doll collector to stop the registration of RAPUNZEL for dolls and toy figures. She argued the name was generic and failed to function as a mark. No tribunal ever ruled on…
Almost every design team now has generative tools somewhere in its workflow: for moodboards, for variant exploration, for the first fifty shapes nobody will use. Until recently, no patent office had said what that means for a design application. Korea has now said it. On 9 July 2026 the Ministry of Intellectual Property (MOIP), the…
When a foreign company begins selling in Korea, packaging and product pages are usually localised for language, units and safety labelling. The intellectual property notices are almost never touched. The patent number that has sat on the box since the product launched at home stays exactly where it is. In Korea, that carried-over line is…