On March 20, 2023, a bill amending the Korean Trademark Act ("Bill") was submitted to the National Assembly to introduce a system that would permit the use of consent letters to overcome rejections based on citations of senior trademarks ("Letter of Consent System"). This Bill is a long-awaited development that eases registration requirements for trademarks and reflects actual trade practices. 

Under the current Trademark Act, a trademark similar to another party's senior mark cannot be registered for the same or similar goods. Even if the applicant submits a letter of consent signed by the owner of the senior mark to the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) expressly consenting to the registration of the later-filed mark, KIPO will not accept the letter. As a result, when such parties agree to the co-existence of their trademarks in Korea, they have had to resort to an assignment/re-assignment strategy ("Assign-Back Strategy"), in addition to entering into a co-existence agreement. Under the Assign-Back Strategy, the junior mark which was preliminarily rejected (or the cited senior mark) is temporarily assigned to the other party so that the marks will be owned by the same party. Once the rejection ground is overcome and the junior mark is registered, the temporarily assigned mark is then re-assigned back to the original owner.

The complexity of the Assign-Back Strategy has led to substantial inefficiencies for trademark practitioners and owners alike. KIPO's practice under the current Trademark Act is also at odds with the practices in many other jurisdictions which also examine for conflicting marks but take letters of consent (if submitted) into consideration during examination. Thus, trademark practitioners have been calling for a change to allow letters of consent for co-existence of trademarks.

In amending the Trademark Act, the Bill aims to reflect the actual trade practices, mitigate the inconvenience of undergoing an extra process to register a trademark despite having the consent of the owner of the conflicting mark, and ease the registration requirements for trademarks. On the other hand, the Bill includes a protective measure that cancels the registration of a mark registered based on the Letter of Consent System if it is used for unfair competitive purposes and causes consumer confusion and/or deception. Furthermore, the Letter of Consent System will not apply where the parties intend to register identical marks for the same goods.

According to KIPO's statistics, about 40% of all trademark-related office actions issued by KIPO in 2022 involved a rejection based on conflict with a senior mark. Thus, the adoption of the Letter of Consent System in Korea is expected to bring substantial relief to trademark practitioners and owners. While the Bill has a number of additional steps to go through before its final passage, it is expected to be promulgated by the end of this year.