'War against counterfeit' with one voice... Order to strengthen response and management of trademark infringement

(Daejeon = Yonhap News) Reporter Lee Joo-hyung = At ​​the government audit of the Ministry of Intellectual Property by the National Assembly Trade, Energy, Small and Medium Venture Business Committee held at the Daejeon Government Complex on the 13th, lawmakers from the ruling and opposition parties unanimously agreed on the need for the so-called 'war against counterfeits.'

In relation to this, lawmakers from the ruling and opposition parties also ordered response to trademark infringement by online platforms and strengthening follow-up management of counterfeit products.

Baek Hye-ryun (Suwon City, Gyeonggi Province), a member of the Democratic Party of Korea, pointed out that as the distribution of counterfeit products is actively moving from existing open markets to SNS platforms, the blocking standards and report processing speeds are different for each platform.

Representative Baek emphasized, “In particular, it was found that Instagram takes an average of two months to process,” and added, “There is a need for an institutional mechanism to respond to trademark infringement by overseas platforms.”

Rep. Kim Seung-won (Suwon City, Gyeonggi Province) of the same party said that thousands of accounts selling counterfeit products were identified by searching for 'luxury bag' even once on Naver Band, a closed SNS, and called for innovative crackdown methods such as increasing reporting rewards and platform sanctions.

Rep. Kim pointed out, “Naver is also making profits by exposing the advertisements in question,” and added, “We should also consider ways to fine or fine the illegal profits for failing to properly manage them.”

People Power Party lawmaker Jo Ji-yeon pointed out the poor follow-up management of online counterfeit products and the lack of procedures for notifying damaged consumers.

Rep. Cho said, “The posts selling counterfeit products on Carrot Market and Auction, which the Ministry of Intellectual Property said had been blocked by last July, were still being sold by the same seller even the day before the National Assembly audit.”

He continued, "The counterfeit cosmetics and health functional foods discovered last September amounted to about 83,000 units worth 4.5 billion won, and there are concerns about damage to consumers as they have already been distributed in the market. We need legal improvement measures such as blocking and aggravating punishment for repeat sellers, and sufficient notification of damage to consumers."