Diversification of Pet Products and Services Leads to a Surge in Trademark Applications

Graph of patent application trends related to pets. Provided by the Korean Intellectual Property Office.

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] The population owning companion animals (hereinafter referred to as companion population) is increasing, and as the products and services they use diversify, trademark applications in the companion animal industry have also surged significantly.

According to the Korean Intellectual Property Office on the 10th, the number of trademark applications related to companion animal products such as dogs and cats nearly doubled from 7,546 cases in 2014 to 13,256 cases in 2019. The average annual growth rate of trademark applications over the past five years also exceeded 12%.

Recently, the variety of designated goods and services at the time of trademark application has also become more noticeable. For example, while dog collars, dog houses, and dog bowls were the main products in the past, nowadays, designated goods and services are diversifying to reflect market conditions, including companion animal funeral services, GPS location tracking devices for preventing companion animal loss, companion animal psychological therapy, and companion animal health care services.

In particular, trademark applications designating dietary supplements for companion animals showed remarkable growth, increasing from 3 cases in 2014 to 481 cases in 2019. During the same period, companion animal training increased by 143.8%, companion animal hotel services by 69.4%, and companion animal grooming services by 55.0%.

Regarding application trends by entity (proportion of total applications by entity), individuals showed the highest growth rate, increasing from 26.5% in 2014 to 40.6% in 2019, followed by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from 19.6% to 34.6%. This indicates that trademark applications by individuals and SMEs have led the increase in trademark applications related to the companion animal industry.

On the other hand, the proportion of large corporations sharply declined from 31.8% in 2014 to 8.0% in 2019.

Moon Sam-seop, Director of the Trademark Design Examination Bureau at the Korean Intellectual Property Office, stated, “As the companion industry market expands and products and services become more premium and diversified, the related market size is gradually increasing. Considering this trend, trademark applications related to companion animal products and services led by individuals and SMEs are expected to continue rising for the time being.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.