The judgment below

The part against the defendant is reversed, and that part of the case is remanded to the Patent Court.

The grounds of appeal are examined.

1. In principle, the similarity of combined trademarks consisting of two or more letters or diagrams should be determined on the basis of the overall appearance, name, and concept of their constituent parts. However, if there is an essential part, in order to induce the conclusion of appropriate observation, it is necessary to compare the similarity of trademarks with the essential part in order to determine the similarity of trademarks.

In addition, the issue of whether the part of a trademark is essential or not shall be determined based on the elements such as whether the part is well-known or considerably increased to ordinary consumers, and whether the part constitutes a high weight in the entire trademark. However, the determination should be made by comprehensively considering the degree of relative distinctiveness compared to other parts of the trademark, its combination and degree, the relationship with the designated goods, and the transaction circumstances.

(See Supreme Court Decision 2015Hu1690 Decided February 9, 2017). 2. We examine in light of the aforementioned legal principles and records.

A. The registered trademark of this case (trademark registration number C) as indicated in the holding of the court below consists of “Weights, sports clothes, and Shirts,” etc. as designated goods.

The pre-registered service mark of this case, as indicated in the judgment of the court below, consists of “the pre-registered service mark” as the designated service business.

B. The part of “shorts” jointly owned by both marks is used as the abbreviation of “group tts” based on the time of application (D) of the instant registered trademark, which is the reference point for determination under Article 7(1)7 of the former Trademark Act (wholly amended by Act No. 14033, Feb. 29, 2016). In addition, there is a tendency that two or more words combine each other in front of each word.

However, according to the records, the term “short” is not pre-registered.