KIPO "Efforts in Intellectual Property Protection Bear Fruit... Commended by Interpol"

The Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) received a commendation from INTERPOL (International Criminal Police Organization) for its contributions.

On the 25th (local time), KIPO announced that its Trademark Special Judicial Police Division (hereinafter Trademark Special Police) received the 2024 International Intellectual Property Crime Investigators College (IIPCIC) Commendation at the 17th International Law Enforcement Intellectual Property Crime Conference held in Willemstad, Cura?ao, a Dutch territory.

IIPCIC is an online intellectual property crime investigation training platform operated by INTERPOL since 2014, which annually holds the International Law Enforcement Intellectual Property Crime Conference to award commendations and professional duty awards.

Among these, the commendation is awarded to investigators or investigative departments that have achieved results through original and innovative investigations in the field of intellectual property crime.

The Trademark Special Police received the commendation for major achievements such as continuously cracking down on the yellow tents at Saebit Market in Dongdaemun, Seoul, from July last year to recently through an investigative cooperation body composed of related organizations including KIPO, Seoul Metropolitan Government, Jung-gu Office of Seoul, and Jungbu Police Station of Seoul; the crackdown on counterfeit Starbucks tumblers in cooperation with the U.S. Embassy in Korea’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in February 2022; the crackdown on counterfeit MLB merchandise in March this year, which raised awareness of intellectual property protection among baseball fans worldwide; and the crackdown on counterfeit K-pop fan goods from 2019 to this year to enhance international national credibility.

The Trademark Special Police is the only specialized investigative department for trademark infringement crimes in Korea. Since September 2010, it has cooperated with domestic and international related organizations such as local governments, prosecutors, police, the Korea Customs Service, and the U.S. Embassy’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) to resolve large-scale trademark infringement cases.

Kim Wanki, Commissioner of KIPO, stated, “KIPO will continue to fulfill its responsibilities to ensure that Korea establishes itself as a global leader in intellectual property protection.”

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