Sellers beware: South Korea will step up inspections of infringing goods

As a cross-border seller, you are no stranger to counterfeit products and cases of intellectual property infringement! Recently, South Korea has stepped up inspections on such products.

The Korea Trade-Related Intellectual Property Protection Association ( TIPA) announced on the 1st that it has opened an intellectual property inspection support headquarters office at the International Postal Logistics Center at Incheon Airport in South Korea and has officially started operations.

Globally, trade in counterfeit goods accounts for approximately 3.3% of total world trade ( approximately US$59 billion), and the methods of distribution of counterfeit goods are constantly changing and becoming more sophisticated.

According to reports released by the OECD and the European Union Intellectual Property Office, the mode of transportation of infringing goods is evolving from sea to mail, and the type of goods is also evolving to small amounts of mail.

TIPA is a non-profit organization established by the Korea Customs Service in 2007 to protect the intellectual property rights of related companies .

Since November 2018, TIPA has been working with customs to carry out inspection activities for intellectual property infringing goods. It dispatches special inspectors to customs every week to screen mail and express mail items that may infringe intellectual property rights and provide assistance for on-site identification of intellectual property rights holders.

Image source: TIPA

A TIPA official said , “The purpose of this office is to provide on-site identification support for items suspected of infringing intellectual property rights and to strengthen cooperation with relevant organizations. We hope to quickly remove the backlog of items suspected of infringing intellectual property rights at the Incheon Airport International Post Customs and the International Post Logistics Center and expand on-site identification support.”

This also means that South Korea's on-site inspections of shipments suspected of infringing intellectual property rights will be faster and more stringent.

As a seller, you should establish a sense of compliance . It is undoubtedly a dead end to get rich by infringing and counterfeiting . You should regard infringement and counterfeiting as high-voltage lines and be cautious when touching them. At the same time, sellers should also pay more attention to their product selection. After all, where there is a market, there are always hidden dangers. Be careful to avoid them and beware of being implicated.

South Korea

Infringement

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