Intellectual Property in Korea

When most people think of Asian countries where intellectual property rights are flouted, I imagine they usually think of places like Vietnam, Thailand and especially China. I've noticed so many examples of it here that it surprises me.

You can see here a box of doughnuts from "Double Donuts" which bears a striking resemblance to an American chain which is also quite popular here. This place is not flying under the radar; it's operating right by a busy subway station.

The other picture is of a candy bar called "KicKer" that can be found in any convenience store. In all fairness this candy bar has little ruler markings printed into it.

I've found an ice cream place called "Ba-su-kin Robbins," loosely named after its founder. Its sign bore a strong resemblance to a US chain. There are also a growing number of folks selling pirated DVDs on the streetside. Some are permanent and some aren't, but they're all very noticeable. There are even some right in Gangnam, only blocks away from the headquarters of Samsung, many top law firms, and the Korea Intellectual Property Institute. Many foreign businesspeople and Korean actors who probably star in many pirated movies must see these, but it doesn't seem to change anything.

Finally, I had an idea: These are all instances where no one seeing the store or product would actually think the maligned trademark holder had something to do with the offending product. What I mean is, no one eating at Double Donuts would mistakenly think they were eating Dunkin Donuts. Perhaps, I thought, trademark protection law in Korea only protects TM-holders against consumer confusion, and simply doesn't recognize "TM dilution" the way US courts do. This is the idea that a proliferation of knock-off products cheapens the good name or status of the original product, thereby hurting its business.

Then I saw a street vendor selling rip-off Nike and The North Face shirts. Not with similar logos, but identical ones. There goes my theory.

I think I'll look for an IP professor this week and bother him about it.

The Human Rights of a Suspect's Family, Revisited

Classes began this week, and I have no big complaints. I am in class primarily with undergraduates. I'm not the sort to paint with a broad brush, and there are a great number of truly insightful undergraduates. However, with so many undergraduates, some undergraduate things are bound to be said. Heaven knows such things get said in law school.

One highlight was the first class meeting of "Human Rights in Korea & East Asia." Our discussion of the differing conceptions of the terms "law" (or droit, loi, recht, or 법) and "human rights" (ditto for droit de l'homme and 인권) among cultures and languages was quite interesting. The term "human rights" evokes a different set of references and mental pictures for an English speaker than "인권" does for a Korean. This seems to be the first of at least two roadblocks to a universal concept of human rights.

The second is this: Even if we made the incredible leap of assuming that the English understanding of human rights was true and universal, implementing it across the globe would require resort to local language. One can call law "법" or one can call it "law," in which case it will just be mentally translated to "법" by locals.

But this is not the case. From my perspective, despite what a collection of dictators say, there are some human rights which are universal. Others are probably not, and the discussion of these usually tends toward non-Western thinkers claiming that international human rights is just a Western construct.

There is a tendency among many of us in the West, myself included, to dismiss these claims that our concept of human rights isn't universal. Between this class and a new article on the serial killer Kang, it occurred to me that other cultures recognize certain legal rights as human rights, where we in the U.S. simply don't. (For background see my earlier post, "Human Rights v. Right to Know.")

According to the latest article, the stature of that human right here in Korea is certainly slipping, but the still good law prohibiting the police from disclosing a suspect's identity was passed specifically to protect his or her family from humiliation - called a human right.

Besides the longstanding socialist argument for positive human rights (food, water, etc), has anyone encountered other examples of "human rights" recognized in the non-Anglophone world that we do not? I'm very interested in your considered comments.