사용 태양에 따른 상표사용의 의미와 판단기준에 관한 연구

A marks are used to distinguish one's business good from the goods of other businesses and the trademark identifies the goods as those belonging to a particular business. The “trademark use” is expressly defined in the Korean Trademark Act under Articles 2(1)(vi) and 2(2). Korean Trademark Act is categorized as a type that general provisions define trademark use notions and are applied consistently in various cases. However, the term trademark use under the Korean Act and use in actual society do not exactly correspond to each other. There are many ways to use a trademark with regards to ones goods. even though a use of anothers mark may literally be “trademark use” under the Act, then such trademark use should not be considered as infringement. Recently, the trademark use theory is getting influence rapidly. the trademark use theory emphasizes that trademark use is the prerequisite of infringement and the use itself should be reviewed firstly and strictly than consumer confusion as consequence. Under circumstances, it needs to be defined and categorized what is the trademark use and how different the trademark use and non- trademark use. Because a literal interpretation of the definition provision may not be sufficient to achieve the aim of the trademark Act. Through this article's analysis, I reviewed the notion of trademark use and categorized the various types of trademark uses in recent cases. It is worthy enough to provide a framework for applying the notion of “trademark use.”