• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.64 no.1
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• pp.123-135
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• 2014

The author has explored whether legal protection of fashion designs is possible under the current Korean Copyright Act with the purpose of promoting the understanding of the legal principles of the copyright law among fashion professionals. It examined the general provisions of the copyright law as well as the requisites for establishment of "works of authorship" and the types of protection stipulated by the copyright law, which are needed to understand the possibilities of legal protection for fashion designs under the law. It then analyzed several leading cases in the fashion designs sector for the interpretation of related legal principles. The Copyright Act defines "works of authorship" for protection as the creative works that express human ideas or emotions. Works to be legally protected under the law include artistic works that are equipped with the prerequisites for establishment of "works of authorship", or fashion designs that are equipped with the prerequisites for establishment of an independent applied artistic works whose originality is distinguishable from articles.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.66 no.1
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• pp.28-41
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• 2016

This paper is aimed at intensively examining the scope of legal protection for fashion designs under the Design Protection Act of Korea. For this purpose, this looked into how the Act defines the concept of design, its requirements, and the prerequisites for acquiring design rights. The study also reviewed statutory interpretations over the judgment of the identity and similarity of designs. For more practical and substantial discussions, this research utilized cases and precedents, which had relevant legal principles. This study also figured out how both the requirements for a design definition - such as merchantability, configuration, visibility, and aesthetics - and the prerequisites for acquiring design rights - like industrial applicability, novelty, and creativity - are interpreted and utilized in actual circumstances. The authors expressed their opinions regarding the criteria of judging the identity and similarity of designs, based on a study of previous cases. Previous rulings show that aesthetics of the exterior design is used as the criteria for determining whether a design is same or similar. So, two designs, which have different specific details, are deemed same or similar, if both designs show similarity in the dominant elements. This is because both designs will produce similar aesthetic qualities. However, if the dominant elements of a design are part of the public domain, and the specific details characterize the design, the latter has to be evaluated in the process. This paper examined scope of legal protection for fashion designs using relevant precedents. The study may serve as academic materials that lead to the establishment of rightful ownership in creative activities.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.44 no.6
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• pp.1120-1138
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• 2020

This study focused on the increasing fashion industry disputes that have resulted from the development of technology and industry. This study examines the improvement of domestic law, along with U.S. precedents that represents a larger fashion market and more legislative cases than Korea. Analyzing previous studies in Korea and the U.S. for theoretical background, it has uncovered limitations that apply to fashion design-related cases, rather than entire lawsuits involving various fashion industries. This study divided litigation into lawsuits involving products, human resources, and other lawsuits (such as incidents such as breach of contract, and portrait rights). Therefore, most lawsuits are related to products because of false socio-cultural perceptions about design imitation in the fashion industry. Lawsuits related to human resources are expected to arise due to the expansion of the Korean fashion industry and the expansion of overseas markets. Finally, new and unexpected conflicts will arise as the environment and social structure diversify. The importance of this study is that real case analysis can help reduce disputes because it can resolve legal instability due to the ambiguity of the interpretation of current law and suggest implications for dispute resolution.

• Journal of the Korea Fashion and Costume Design Association
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.5-21
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• 2001

The intellectual properties right are becoming very critical issues in domestic fashion industries and also international trade. Although it is true that intellectual properties rights are commonly infringed in fashion industry, none of researches has been done for this matter. The present study is to analyze the patterns of infringement by case analysis, which was limited to trademark and trade dress. As a result, in case of trademarks, counterfeiting was relatively clear case, but it is generally investigated by prosecutes whereas the judgement of similar trademark has been taken by legal lawsuit. In case of industrial design(trade dress) most of disputes were related to textile design and modified Korean tradition dress. Reflecting the short history of protection of intellectual properties rights many informations and legal regulations should be established by te government and by the association of fashion related industry.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.53-67
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• 2004

The purpose of this study was to analyze anti-counterfeiting strategies of fashion firms in Korea. Data was collected by in-depth interviews for 25 fashion firms and 5 buying offices who had been victims of counterfeiting. The result showed that fashion firms recognized the counterfeiting, especially deceptive counterfeiting, as a serious problem in Korea and seek for stronger protection. Fashion firms adopted diverse strategies for the protection of trademark and for the protection of design； (1) Investigation and Surveillance, (2) Warning, (3) Prosecution, (4) Lawsuit, (5) Consumer education (6) High-tech tabooing, (7) Provide incentives, (8) Penalty, (9) Do nothing. Despite the diverse efforts, they proposed the most desirable strategies to deter the counterfeiting as the changes of consumer attitude and stronger legal protection.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.37-50
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• 2009

Recently, as individual 3D avatars are rapidly generalized in internet sites, its commercial applications for fashion business are being tried in ubiquitous fashion shopping era. In this research, we have investigated and analyzed patent problems of 3D avatar including personal body data to activate the fashion business using 3D avatars. Here, considering the patents for 3D face and body generation methods are already published, this research is focused on whole 3D body avatar obtained from individual body information. Firstly, definition of 3D avatar and its application cases have been investigated and then it has been researched whether or not legal protections by patent law, copyright law, computer program protection law, design protection law and fair competition laws are feasible in view of the subjects to be protected in each law and requirements for such protections. It was revealed that patent law may provide legal protections for 3D avatar and domestic and foreign patents related to 3D avatar have been researched.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.547-560
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• 2011

This study examines the effect of corporate social responsibility on the corporate image and purchase intention. The data were obtained from 320 male and female 'C' university students in Daejeon in October of 2010. The data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, factor analysis, reliability analysis, regression analysis using the SPSS-WIN 15.0 and AMOS 7.0 program. The results were as follows. First, corporate social responsibility consists of five dimensions: community/cultural service, social contribution, environmental protection, consumer protection/legal responsibility, and economic responsibility. Purchase intention consists of comparative purchase and priority purchase. Second, social contribution, consumer protection/legal responsibility, and economic responsibility affect the corporate image. Third, social contribution and consumer protection/legal responsibility also affect purchase intention. Forth, the corporate image affects purchase intention. The findings of this study are expected to be used as basic data for establishing differentiated marketing strategies in fashion company.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.41 no.6
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• pp.1071-1084
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• 2017

This study investigates ethical fashion consumption factors and corporate social responsibility (CSR) factors to segment consumer groups by ethical fashion consumption (EFC) and identify differences of EFC groups in the perception of CSR and demographics. I surveyed 390 people over age 20 in February and March, 2017. Data were analyzed with factorial analysis, cluster analysis, ANOVA, LSD, Chi-square, Cronbach's ${\alpha}$, using SPSS 20.0. The survey showed. 1) Five EFC factors (boycott/active purchase, donation/environmental protection, saving, legal consumption, and recycle) were extracted. 2) Four CSR factors (responsibility for stakeholder, ethical/environmental responsibility, social/charitable responsibility, and economic responsibility) were extracted. 3) EFC consumers were classified into four segments (low ethic, recycle, legal, and high ethic). 4) The perception of CSR factors was different among EFC groups. 5) The distribution of age level, education level, occupation, monthly purchase cost of clothing, and religion were different among EFC groups.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.167-179
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• 2013

In recent years, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has received particular attentions from both practitioners and scholars. This study focused on Korean national fashion businesses and identified various types of CSR practices in addition to social contributions. Besides, comparison in corporation by size of the number of full-time employees and sales volume were examined. A total of 1054 cases of 147 brands, 86 corporations between 2000 and 2012 were collected from internet articles and brand home pages. Findings were as follows. First, the types of CSR activities were categorized into the following six: economic responsibility, legal responsibility, consumer protection, protection of worker's right, protection of environment, and social contribution. Social contribution took largest portion of CSR activities (67.7%), followed by environmental protection (14%), and protection of worker's right (6.2%). The other three types presented limited cases but included negative aspects of CSR. Social contribution consisted of six sub categories (culture & art, sports, education, donation, voluntary service, and campaign), and donation took the largest part of social contribution area. Second, comparing 86 corporations by the size of the number of full-time employees, companies more than 300 employees (38.1%) were more likely to practice CSR activities. Similarly, companies with more than 500 billion won sales (13.1%) were more active in their CSR activities than their counterparts. Suggestions are given for improving CSR practices to fashion business.

• Proceedings of the Korea Society of Costume Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.75-75
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• 2003

The distinctive design of apparel product is the crucial factor that provides the powerful competitive advantage and customer satisfaction. However, knock-offs or copycats easily copy the design of apparel product and its problem tends to be assented in real world. Design right is one of intellectual property rights that would be produced by intellectual activity and the appropriate means to establish the exclusive rights to the design should be established. Legal protection to the design right is the system that can prelude copycats from eroding an exclusive position in the market place. The present study was to analyze the trend of registration of design rights in apparel products and to point out problems of current protection law to design.