The Korean Ministry of Information and Communication (the "Ministry") has announced that, in achieving prohibition of cybersquatting, systematic management of domain names, and setting standards in domain name related disputes, a proposal for the Internet Domain Name Law (the "Proposal") will be submitted to the National Assembly to take effect from the year of 2005. A detailed outline of the Proposal has been laid out as follows. 1. Cybersquatting: The Proposal attempts to eliminate what is known as "Cybersquatting," which can be interpreted as registering a domain name for wrongful purposes and a fine of 10 million Korean Won is to be imposed on a wrongdoer. Currently, Internet domain name disputes can only be reviewed under the Trademark Law and Unfair Competition & Trade Secrets Law (the "Current Law"). This has caused many concerns, because the Current Law can only protect against those who have intended to financially benefit from the use and registration of the domain name. This has resulted in the dismissal of cases involving domain names such as fedex.co.kr, dow.co.kr, grammy.co.kr, grammyaward.co.kr, and rolls-royce.co.kr because the holders neither benefited financially nor were proven to have any intention to commercially use them in identifying a product or service. In reaction to this problem, legislation was passed in February, 2001 to amend the Current Law. The amendment included an "Anti-dilution" clause for prohibiting any attempts to dilute the distinction of a well-known identifier (e.g. Trademark), or damage the reputation of a trade. However, the amendment failed to extend its jurisdiction to someone who simply holds the registration without any commercial use thereof. However, once the Proposal takes effect, the rightful owners of such domain names will easily defeat any party who intentionally registers a domain name with the intention of cybersquatting. The relevant clause, which is Article 16 of the Proposal, states that "the purpose of registering Internet domain names under Article 11 of the Proposal, shall not be to interfere with others ability to rightfully register a domain name, or simply for wrongful benefit¡¦" 2. The Current Law: The Proposal specifically states that the rights to an action under the Current Law will remain in focusing on the misuse of the domain names for commercial purposes. This means that any domain name used for financial benefit and which identifies a product or service will be subjected to cancellation through the existing registration cancellation process. 3. Claim of Priority: The current registration system, which has the first-to-file rule, does not warrant a successful applicant for a cancellation of a registration to be the holder of a new registration. In order to resolve this problem, the Proposal allows a protected period of 1 month from the date of the cancellation of the registration to give priority to the successful applicant (rightful owner) to register the subject domain name. 4. Unused Domain Names: The Proposal allows the rightful owner to make an application to cancel a registration of a subject domain name if it is not in use for a set period of 18 months. Additionally, because the registration of an Internet domain name must be renewed annually, if it is not renewed it can be assumed that the registration holder no longer has any interest in said domain name and thus it is subject to cancellation upon request by the rightful owner. The following table outlines the rapid increase in domain name disputes in recent years. If you wish to know more about the above news/information, please contact us at email@youme.com