법무법인바른 사이트는 IE11이상 혹은 타 브라우저에서
정상적으로 구동되도록 구현되었습니다.

익스플로러 10 이하버전에서는 브라우저 버전 업데이트 혹은
엣지, 크롬, 사파리등의 다른 브라우저로 접속을 부탁드립니다. 감사합니다.

1. Case Overview
The plaintiff launched a pebble-shaped closed-system vaporizer (CSV) in January 2019. The defendant released a similarly shaped CSV in August 2023. The plaintiff sued the defendant for unfair competition, arguing that: the defendant's product design is similar to the plaintiff’s and the defendant's product components (cartridge, device) are compatible with the plaintiff's.

2. Key Legal Issues
(a) Did the defendant's act of manufacturing and selling the product violate Article 2(1)(a) of the Unfair Competition Prevention and Trade Secret Protection Act (UCPA)?

(b) Did the defendant's act of manufacturing and selling the product violate Article 2(1)(p) of the UCPA?

3. Plaintiff's Argument vs. Our Defense
The plaintiff could not claim design infringement since the product design was not registered as a design right. Instead, the plaintiff attempted to argue that the product design itself functioned as a well-known trademark (Article 2(1)(a)) or was the result of significant investment (Article 2(1)(p)). The plaintiff repeatedly emphasized the similarity in design and product compatibility to claim unfair competition.

We attempted to avoid engaging in the plaintiff’s framing and methodically refuted the legal requirements for unfair competition. We proved that similar pebble-shaped vaporizers had been widely available in Korea before the plaintiff's product launched. We conducted and presented a reliable consumer survey to demonstrate that consumers did not associate the plaintiff’s product design with a particular brand.

4. Court's Decision
On January 24, 2025, the Seoul Central District Court dismissed all of the plaintiff's claims (Decision No. 2024Gahap42497, dated January 24, 2025). The court accepted our evidence, including the consumer survey, while rejecting the plaintiff's survey results.

5. Significance of the Decision
This decision clarifies that a competitor offering a similarly shaped product does not automatically constitute unfair competition and product compatibility alone is insufficient to establish unfair competition claims. This decision sets a valuable precedent for future disputes concerning product design similarity and component compatibility.