LG HOUSEHOLD & HEALTH CARE, Ltd. (LGHH) Seoul, South Korea
Korea's Leading Cosmetics & Household Goods Company
Legal counsel / Manager in the Intellectual Property Department (Full- time) Jul 2018 –Present
- Expanded the significant IP rights of the company's global business and managed them worldwide.
- Reviewed and drafted IP contracts, negotiations, transfer agreements, coexistence agreements, and license agreements
- Reviewed IP risks and monitored each country's IP policies, systems, and laws with worldwide agents.
- Conducted civil and criminal lawsuits under the Unfair Competition Prevention, Trade Secret Protection Act, the Copyright Act and the Trademark Act.
- Consulted on copyright infringement and investigated copyright risk related to marketing, use of famous artworks or movie scenes, advertising music and font designs in Korea, China, Japan, Europe, the UK and US.
- Conducted preliminary investigations on existing registered designs of new product designs and reviewed the design infringement issues in the US, UK, Europe, China, and Japan.
- Performed trademark applications and related cancellation and invalidation trials in Korea, the UK, EUTM, China, Japan, the USA, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa.
- Conducted Bad-Faith trademark litigations and carried out a colour trademark application for the company's best-selling products.
- Supported seminars related to IP operation strategy in Metaverse business and researched trademark application methods for the Metaverse.
- Provided advice on M&A projects as an IP lawyer, managed the due-diligence processes and completed deals in 2021 and 2022.
KOREA INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OFFICE (KIPO) Daejeon, South Korea
Korean central government agency
Public Officer & Examiner in Trademark & Design Examination Bureau (Full-time) Oct 2015 – Jul 2018
- Examined more than 2,500 trademark cases of clothing, shoes, hats(class 25), food and beverages(class 29, 30, 31, and 32), pharmaceuticals (class 5), cosmetics (class 3), as well as service industries (class 35).
- Examined Korean, English, Japanese, and Chinese trademarks, characters, figures, and combinations and determined the distinguishing power of marks and similarity; made registration/rejection decisions.
- Conducted international and diplomatic affairs of KIPO (Trademark & Design Examination Bureau), primarily related to TM5, the world's five most considerable trademark offices, in the US, Japan, Europe, China, and Korea.
- Participated in IP policy meetings at “INTA Annual Meeting”, “TM5 Midterm Meeting”, “Bilateral Meeting between the US, Japan, Europe, China and Korea” in Spain in 2017, and “Classification Experts Meeting” in China in 2017
- Presented “TM5 cooperation project results” at “INTA Work Shop of KIPO” in Spain in 2017
- Provided translation services when the JPO visited KIPO for “2016 Korea-Japan Trademark Experts Meeting” and translated the geographical collective mark exchange list for “2017 Korea-Japan Trademark Experts Conference”.
LAW FIRM SOMYOUNG, LLP Seoul, South Korea
Legal counsel (Legal Intern) May 2015 – Sep2015
- Supported research, consulting, and writing opinions for Civil Act and Insurance Act cases.
- Provided advice, preparation of court documents, writing of opinions on cases of Trademark Act, Design Act, Patent Act, the Unfair Competition Prevention And Trade Secret Protection Act, Copyright Act, Criminal Act
- Written an opinion on architectural copyright infringement on the design drawings of other companies' apartment housing plans.
- Claimed that the design of dolls and the form of creative expression is substantially similar to that of Japanese character dolls concerning the response to the infringement of the Unfair Competition Prevention Act.
