The defendant shall be innocent.

1. The Defendant is a person who operates an Internet commercial enterprise called “D” in Songpa-gu Seoul Metropolitan Government Building C.

From August 2017 to May 2018, the Defendant infringed upon the right to design of E by selling in the Internet, etc. each friendly storage apparatus that registered the design with the Korean Intellectual Property Office as “Design F (G), ② Design H (I), and ③ Design J (K) on December 29, 2012.

2. Determination

A. The gist of the Defendant and his defense counsel’s assertion is that the Defendant only imported or sold a mountain storage device through a foreign Internet site, including China, without knowing that the design of the mountain storage device was registered. Thus, there was no intention to infringe upon the E design right.

B. According to the records, it is recognized that the Defendant sold almost similar products with each friendly storage device, the design of which was registered with the Korean Intellectual Property Office as stated in the facts constituting a crime in the judgment of the Defendant, and the products manufactured almost similarly. However, in light of the following circumstances acknowledged by the records, it is difficult to readily conclude that the Defendant had intent to infringe another’s design right by selling the friendly storage device at the time of the instant case, regardless of whether the Defendant was negligent in not knowing that the design of the friendly storage device was a registered design. There is no evidence to acknowledge otherwise.

(1) E does not indicate the design registration number, etc. on the product description of the above Internet site while selling an friendly storage device of the design he/she registered through the Internet site.

While the defendant discovered that he had searched the Internet site and sold a friendly storage device similar to that of the design E, there is no information on the design registration, etc. on the Internet site.