A Study on the Registration of Analogous Trademark to Polo/Ralph Lauren Trademark

폴로/랄프로렌 도형상표의 유사상표 등록에 관한 연구

This study was to analyze the trademarks of The Polo Lauren Company in fashion products and its analogous trademarks that have been applied or registered in the Korean Patent Office. The data was collected from the Korean Patent Office and KIPRIS search system was used. Total 468 trademarks applied by the date of September 10, 2003 including 317 registered trademarks of the Polo Lauren Company and 151 its analogous trademarks applied for fashion products, were used for the analysis. The results were follows. (1) Total 73 different types of trademarks of the Polo Lauren Company were registered for 26 product classification. Trademarks were composed of all possible combination of letter, sign and sketch to prevent the registration of its analogous trademark. Also even the same trademarks were registered for each different product classification. Since the early 1990s the extended trademarks for each segments reflecting diverse lifestyles were frequently registered. (2) Total 134 trademarks that had applied for registration were rejected due to its analogousness to the Polo Lauren. Most of them were seem to purposely analogous to mislead and to confuse consumers. The major type was to add one or two words as brand extention to the genuine Polo brand. Next type was minor modification of genuine trademark. The last type was almost same brand names in different product categories. (3) Total 3 trademarks were not permit to register by the objection of the Polo Lauren Company. Total 19 trademarks were permit to register. Those showed low degree of analogousness. However most of these trademarks were cancelled by the lawsuit of the Polo Lauren company.