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Gentle Monster. (Photo: Yonhap News) |
[Alpha Biz= Kim Jisun] IICOMBINED, the operator of global eyewear brand Gentle Monster, emphasized the need to strengthen design protection following a product imitation case involving rival brand Blue Elephant.
In a statement on March 17, IICOMBINED said it hopes the case will serve as “an important turning point in protecting design creation and fair competition,” referring to allegations that Blue Elephant copied popular Gentle Monster products by photographing them and commissioning overseas manufacturers to produce similar items.
The Intellectual Property Office’s special judicial police for technology and design, along with the Patent Crime Investigation Division of the Daejeon District Prosecutors’ Office, indicted the head of the company on charges of violating the Unfair Competition Prevention and Trade Secret Protection Act for importing and selling products that imitated the shape of another company’s goods.
A division head identified only as Woo and the corporate entity were also indicted without detention on the same charges. Notably, this marks the first criminal prosecution in South Korea based solely on the imitation of product design without a registered design right.
According to industry sources, Blue Elephant produced around 50 imitation eyewear products and one pouch by photographing Gentle Monster’s popular designs and outsourcing production to overseas manufacturers, without having its own design development team.
A 3D scanning analysis showed that 29 of the 50 imitation products matched the originals by more than 95%, with deviations of less than 1 millimeter. Of these, 18 products were found to be near-identical “dead copies,” with similarity rates exceeding 99%.
Based on these findings, IICOMBINED filed an invalidation trial with the Intellectual Property Trial and Appeal Board in March this year regarding the pouch product and is currently awaiting a decision.
Blue Elephant reportedly sold approximately 320,000 imitation items between February 2023 and June 2025, generating around 12.3 billion won in consumer sales.
The company’s revenue surged from 900 million won in 2022 to 5.7 billion won in 2023 and 30 billion won in 2024.
The court has determined that the profits may constitute proceeds of crime and issued a provisional seizure order of approximately 7.8 billion won.
Blue Elephant, however, argued that similarities in design are inevitable in the eyewear industry and said it plans to present its case during the trial proceedings.
Alphabiz Reporter Kim Jisun(stockmk2020@alphabiz.co.kr)
