Korea's Intellectual Property Office uncovered 1,263 cases of intellectual property rights violations in a follow-up investigation targeting 2,507 sellers previously caught for false labeling last year, the agency announced on the 8th. This marks the highest number of violations ever detected in a planned investigation related to false labeling.
The reinvestigation covered the top 193 products and 2,507 sellers reported to the False Labeling Report Center or caught through planned investigations from January to the end of September last year.
Among the 2,507 sellers previously caught, 86 continued distributing the same products even after receiving corrective orders, accounting for 236 cases. Patent rights violations were the most common at 94 cases. The most frequent violation type involved displaying expired rights, with 210 cases recorded.
New sellers redistributed 67 previously flagged products, resulting in 1,027 additional cases. Patent rights violations again topped the list at 694 cases, with expired rights labeling accounting for 704 cases.
Enforcement against online false labeling faces physical limitations in identifying and penalizing all related postings at the time of investigation. The structure of false labeling images being copied and spread from original postings makes it difficult to prevent recurrence through individual posting sanctions alone. The IP Office plans to strengthen its enforcement system by cooperating with online platforms that manage original postings to directly sanction them. The agency will also develop an AI-based monitoring system that databases violation histories and continuously detects and manages any reposting of previously flagged images or text.
Additionally, the office will systematically manage sellers' violation histories and introduce a tiered penalty system based on the number of repeat offenses. The IP Office will directly launch administrative investigations into the top five sellers by violation count, all large-scale distributors.
"This reinvestigation demonstrates that false labeling enforcement must shift from post-incident crackdowns to continuous management," said Shin Sang-gon, Director General of the IP Protection Cooperation Bureau. "The IP Office will enhance the effectiveness of intellectual property protection and establish a sound online distribution order through continuous improvement of our management system."