As globalized economy has led Korea to import more foreign goods with renowned trademarks, Korea faces a legal issue of parallel importation of genuine goods. A lot of studies and cases on the parallel importation of genuine goods which has been frequent in advanced countries since 19th centuries are accumulated until now, but Korea faces this issue recently.
Korea government prohibited the parallel importation of genuine goods in the beginning to evade unnecessary trade friction and to protect the intellectual property rights including partly through amendment of the Customs Service regulations in 1995.
For the establishment of WTO, distribution market opened totally and international trade is increasing more and more. So many countries including Korea begin to permit the monopolization resulted from abuse of trademark right and activation of domestic economy.
Many countries including Korea in the course of permission of the parallel importation of genuine goods, and are focusing on the preparation of theoretical basis for it.
Discussion on the parallel importation of genuine goods started with trademark right, but it is an area which needs study and a multilateral approach because it is related not only to trademark right but also intellectual property rights. This study aims to manifest the insufficiency of theoretical approach of the Customs Service Regulations in condition of the parallel importation of genuine goods referring to theories which is based on the purpose and the function of trademark.
The permission measures of the Office of Customs Administration have to show their apparent standpoint about trademark law and related laws to cope with parallel importation which can infringe trademark owner's profit and restrict the practice of their right.
It is necessary for us to study more and make efforts to bring efficient management and positive effects of the parallel importation of genuine goods.
This article analyzes cases and theories accumulated in the United States, Japan, EU regarding parallel importation and attempts to set proper standards for settlement of such cases as they may occur in Korea.