The Ministry of Intellectual Property (“MOIP”) has announced that the Amended Design Protection Act entered into force on November 28, 2025, to improve the Partial-Substantive Examination System (“PSES”) and to further safeguard the rights of legitimate right holders.

Maintenance of Fair Market Practices by Eliminating Unfair Design Rights

While the Design Protection Act generally adopts the Substantive Examination System (“SES”), which reviews all registration requirements, the PSES applies to short-lived goods—such as fashion and accessories—to streamline examination and expedite rights protection.

However, the rise of online transactions has led to an increase in cases where the PSES was exploited, such as third parties registering designs that had already been disclosed by others to facilitate monopolized sales.

Accordingly, under the amended law, if an examiner identifies clear grounds for refusal, such as lack of novelty, a design application—even one filed under the PSES—may now be rejected.

Previously, any party could challenge incorrectly filed design registrations through an opposition. However, the opposition period was limited to three months from the publication of registration only, imposing significant time constraints. 

Following the amendment, a party may now file an opposition within three months of receiving notice of infringement. This applies where the party has received a written warning or a request for explanation concerning violations of rights in marketplaces. The opposition must, however, still be filed within one year from the publication of the registration.

Implications for legitimate owners’ rights

In the past, when an infringing party misappropriated a pre-existing design and proceeded to register it, the legitimate owner had no choice but to invalidate the design rights in question and file a completely new application within 30 days from the conclusion of invalidation decision, which was both burdensome, and time-consuming. Pursuant to the Amended Act, the legitimate owner can now request the transfer of design rights that were previously violated. 

Moving forward, legitimate owners can choose between two remedies: either invalidate the infringing parties’ rights and reapply, or directly request the transfer of such rights through the court. This provides legitimate owners with greater flexibility and expedited rights protection.

In addition, the design registration form no longer requires a gist of the creative features, further simplifying the application process. 

*This article is an English summary of publicly available materials published by MOIP.