About IP DABOM: Korean trademark search and monitoring
IP DABOM helps brand owners and their counsel prevent trademark disputes in Korea before rights arise. It combines My tracked trademarks, which checks the trademarks you choose every day, with keyword monitoring, which finds the trademarks worth tracking.
My tracked trademarks
We check the trademarks you choose every day and email you on the day a change in the examination stage is found.
| How to add | Click "Save as tracked trademark" in a monitoring report, or use "+ Add a tracked trademark" in My tracked trademarks to find a mark by application number, registration number or name. |
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| Checked every day | Examination events (office actions, responses, decision to publish, decision to register), publication for opposition in the Trademark Gazette, registration date, expiry date |
| When it changes | An email on the day the change is found. My tracked trademarks also keeps the change date and the previous stage. |
| Next stage timing | Estimated from recent processing times for the same stage, labelled "estimate", with its basis |
| Beta | Up to 3 tracked trademarks |
| What we need | An email address only. A phone number only if you want to give one. |
Change alerts report that public examination records have changed. They are not legal advice on similarity or on what to do. If you need a patent attorney's view, click "Get patent attorney review" on that trademark.
Keyword monitoring: how we monitor trademark filings in Korea
When you start a trademark search, we look for similar trademarks and send you a report. Save the ones you want to keep an eye on as tracked trademarks. Gazette data is collected every day; your keywords are compared once a week.
- Data from the Ministry of Intellectual Property (MOIP): publications for opposition and applications, collected every day
- New applications and publications for opposition: both are compared, keeping only marks whose similarity groups of designated goods overlap with yours
- Goods and services: marks for unrelated goods are left out
- Sound comparison: names are compared by how they sound in Korean, letter by letter of the Hangul syllables
- Report: machine results are sent to you directly. For any mark that needs a patent attorney's view, click "Get patent attorney review" on it
- Third-party information submission or opposition (if needed): prepared and filed by the firm
Hangul spellings: how to read Korean marks
Hangul is the Korean alphabet. Western brand names are often filed in Korea written in Hangul, spelled by how the name sounds. One Latin-letter name can have several Hangul spellings, and a Hangul mark can be romanized in more than one way.
Example (our own service name): DABOM may be written 다봄, which reads "dabom" under the official Korean romanization rules.
- Enter your brand with its Hangul spelling. When a Hangul spelling is selected, its romanized spellings (with or without spaces and hyphens) are searched as well.
- A Latin-letter spelling on its own does not search Hangul spellings. If you are not sure how your brand is written in Hangul, use "Ask a question" and we will help.
- Reading guide in English pages: Hangul mark names in reports and trademark details show how they read. Where public records support it, they also show the English word they spell or what they mean in Korean, with the basis: the same application's English text is shown as fact, the applicant's other filings as likely.
- No English shown? Coined or invented spellings often cannot be traced from public records. Click “Ask us” next to the mark and we will reply by email, or use “Get patent attorney review” for a legal opinion.
🔒 Only you can open your keywords and reports
- Encrypted twice with AES-256: keywords, goods and reports are stored encrypted and locked again with a key from the passphrase you set.
- Your passphrase is not sent to our server: your keywords do not appear on the admin screen, in emails, in logs or on the patent attorney's screen.
- Only what you choose goes to the patent attorney: just the marks you send with "Get patent attorney review". We answer within 3 business days.
- Remember on this device: when turned on, that browser does not ask for the passphrase again.
Reports and tracked trademarks
| First report | The full current picture for your name. Each mark has a machine classification (identical, similar, for reference). Marks reviewed by a patent attorney also show the patent attorney's assessment. |
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| Save tracked trademarks | Click "Save as tracked trademark" next to a mark to save it right away; click again to remove it. |
| Following reports | Tracked trademarks and new marks come first. Tracked marks whose stage, publication or registration changed since the last report are shown in detail; marks in an open opposition period are always shown in full. |
A patent attorney's assessment compares the marks themselves. Conclusions can differ depending on the designated goods and actual trade circumstances; an assessment that reflects them is given as a separate review.
Trademark opposition in Korea
| Who may oppose | Anyone. No interest in the matter is required (Article 60(1) of the Korean Trademark Act). |
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| Deadline | Within 30 days from the date the application is published for opposition (Article 60(1)). After that, the mark proceeds to registration unless refused. |
| Who decides | A panel of three examiners (Article 62(1)), which may also examine grounds that were not raised (Article 63). |
| Before publication | Anyone may submit information with evidence that an application should not be registered (third-party information submission, Article 49). |
| After registration | The remedies become invalidation or cancellation actions, with more steps and more cost. Acting at the application stage is usually simpler. |
Beta
| Keywords | Up to 3 active keywords per account, with up to 5 goods or services each |
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| Tracked trademarks | Up to 3 |
| Coverage | Korean word marks (Hangul and Latin letters): applications and publications for opposition. US and Japan: in preparation. |
| Patent attorney review | "Get patent attorney review" on each mark, answered within 3 business days |
The search results and the identical or similar classifications on this site are machine judgments made under criteria designed by Korean patent attorney Youngbong Yoo. They are not legal advice on any individual matter, so any decision based on them is your own. If you need an assessment under Korean trademark law, please use "Get patent attorney review" or "Ask a question".