인터넷상에서 ‘상표의 사용’ 개념 및 그 지위(Ⅲ) - 메타태그, 한글도메인이름 관련분쟁을 중심으로 -

While many Korean courts' cases about the internet space generally have taken a position that trademark use by competitors exists only when the mark is visually recognizable to the consumers, some case law on meta tags and so-called Hangul domain name arguably took the opposite position. Unlike in the real world where any competitor should almost always visually present the disputed mark to the consumer by, as an example, attaching the trademark to his counterfeits, the mark in the cyberspace is literally invisible to the consumers even though the competitor misappropriates goodwill of the mark owner. Because the statutory provisions for trademark use requirement in Korea have not yet reflected the above mentioned difference between the real world and cyberspace, the relevant provisions in the Korean Trademark Act should inevitably be interpreted very flexibly to fill the gap in the current law until an amendment to the law will be made in the future. Here, we should be careful about the fact that our courts already have indirectly acknowledged non-visual use of a trademark and visual trademark use can be a type of trademark use though Korean Trademark Act defines trademark as a visually recognizable construct.