The prosecutor's appeal is dismissed.

1. According to the summary of the grounds for appeal (misunderstanding of facts or misapprehension of the legal principle), since the court below acquitted the victim F’s trademark “H” on the premise that well-knownness is not recognized, the court below erred by misapprehending the legal principles on facts or by misapprehending the rules of evidence.

2. Determination

A. Whether a mark indicating another person's goods has been widely known in the Republic of Korea under Article 2 subparagraph 1 (a) of the Unfair Competition Prevention and Trade Secret Protection Act is based on the period of use, method, pattern, capacity, scope of transaction, etc., and whether the mark was objectively widely known in light of the actual condition of the transaction of the goods and the social norms.

However, in cases where a trademark or a product mark has no or weak distinctiveness as a result of a combination of simple letters or figures or indicating the character of the product, and thus becomes widely known in the Republic of Korea, the standard should be applied strictly, since it grants the right to a mark that is not originally exclusive.

On the other hand, in violation of the anti-competitive law under Article 18 (3) 1 of the same Act, whether a mark indicating another person's goods is widely known in Korea should be determined at the time of infringement.

Supreme Court Decision 2007Do10562 Decided September 11, 2008

B. In full view of the circumstances stated in its reasoning, the lower court determined that the victim’s “H” trademark was widely known domestically only by the evidence presented by the prosecutor.

For the reason that it cannot be readily determined, innocence was pronounced.

Taking account of the following circumstances revealed by the evidence duly admitted and examined by the lower court and the lower court in light of the circumstances duly explained by the lower court, H trademark is widely known in the Republic of Korea around December 2, 2013 and around January 2014, which was at the time of the infringement of the facts charged in the instant case.