The Korea Customs Service (KCS) recently published its 2021 Annual Report on Intellectual Property Rights Seizures ("2021 Report"). According to the 2021 Report, after the number of IPR-infringing seizure cases by the Korean Customs Offices substantially increased in 2018 due to implementation of measures to enhance detection of infringement, the number of cases has since dropped significantly over the past five years, from 52,423 total products seized in 2018 to only 29,190 products seized in 2021.

The 2021 Report also contains the following notable observations:

• 98.7% of goods seized in 2021 related to suspected trademark infringement, but the total number of such trademark-related seizures actually decreased 16.1% from 2020. On the other hand, the number of goods seized relating to suspected infringement of other types of IP such as patents and design rights increased by 47.6% from 2020.
• 74.5% of all seized goods were imported into Korea via postal parcels, while 24.1% were imported via express courier (most of which represent direct overseas purchases by Korean consumers). Since over 98% of all seized imports came in through the above two methods, extra care may be needed to clear imports shipped as postal parcels or express courier packages through customs.
• Seizures at the border of the following types of goods increased significantly from 2020 to 2021:

o    Home appliances (increased by 84.1%);
o    Stationery and toys (increased by 124.8%);
o    Personal accessories such as gloves, belts, etc. (increased by 104.3%) 

• However, seizures of the following types of goods decreased substantially from 2020 to 2021:

o    Handbags (decreased by 17%);
o    Footwear (decreased by 44%);
o    Sports equipment (decreased by 33.3%)

The English language version of the full KCS report is available at this link.