Indonesia and Korea have grown into close economic partners. IK-CEPA entered into force in 2023, Korean manufacturers and brands are woven deep into Indonesian supply chains, and Korean beauty, electronics, and content products are everywhere in the Indonesian market. That closeness is exactly why a wave of amendments to Korea's intellectual property laws — rolling out across 2024 and 2025 — deserves attention from Indonesian companies, even those that have never filed a single application in Seoul.
The reforms touch patents, trademarks, designs, trade secrets, and (still pending) copyright. They pull in two directions at once: widening the options available to legitimate rights holders, while sharpening the penalties facing infringers. For Indonesian businesses that export to Korea, source from Korea, manufacture for Korean brands, or license Korean IP, the practical question is no longer whether these changes are relevant — it is which ones land first.
New doors for rights holders
Trademark coexistence agreements (in force since 1 May 2024) may be the most quietly useful change. Previously, a mark was refused if it resembled an earlier registration, regardless of whether real-world confusion was likely. Now, if the senior rights holder consents, both marks can coexist on the register. For an Indonesian consumer-goods or F&B company expanding into Korea and finding a similar mark already there, this converts a dead end into a negotiation. The senior holder might consent in exchange for a licensing fee or a territorial limitation — and what used to be a conflict becomes a deal.
Design right transfer claims (in force 1 July 2025) address a frustration familiar to anyone who has worked with external designers. If someone registered your design without authorization, your only remedy used to be invalidation followed by re-filing, often a one-to-two-year setback. Now the rightful owner can ask a Korean court to transfer the registration directly. For Indonesian brands commissioning design work — packaging, product styling, app interfaces — this is a strong reason to tighten ownership clauses in designer contracts now, before a dispute arises.
Sharper enforcement teeth
The enforcement side is where Indonesian exporters and manufacturers should pay closest attention.
Cross-border infringement loopholes have been closed. Korean patent law now explicitly treats export as an infringing act (effective 22 July 2025), and trademark law now captures supplying goods domestically for the purpose of export (effective 1 May 2024). The old gray zone — where goods made in Korea but sold abroad escaped Korean infringement claims — is gone. The implication runs both ways: a rights holder can pursue a Korean factory based on export activity alone, and an Indonesian company sourcing from Korea must ensure its suppliers hold proper IP clearances, or risk supply-chain disruption.
Punitive damages have risen from a maximum of three times actual damages to five times, for willful infringement of trademarks (27 May 2025), designs (1 July 2025), and trade secrets (21 August 2024). The number matters, but the strategic takeaway matters more: proof of intent now drives the damages figure. Documenting warnings and infringement notices is no longer just good housekeeping — it is the lever that moves an award from compensatory to punitive.
Trade secret protection saw three changes worth noting, all effective 21 August 2024. The secrecy-management threshold dropped from "substantial efforts" to "reasonable efforts," meaning basic measures — marking documents confidential, password protection, signed NDAs — can now suffice. This is genuinely good news for SMEs and foreign subsidiaries operating lean. At the same time, criminal penalties hardened: overseas leakage of trade secrets now carries a mandatory minimum of three years' imprisonment, with suspended sentences eliminated.
Procedural shifts to put on the calendar
Two timing changes deserve a place in any monitoring routine. The trademark opposition period has been compressed from two months to 30 days (effective 27 May 2025), which means passive quarterly monitoring of competitor filings is no longer adequate — real-time watch services or weekly gazette checks become necessary. And the patent term extension system for pharmaceuticals has been reformed (effective 22 July 2025): only one patent per regulatory approval may be extended, capped at 14 years from the approval date. This brings Korea closer to US and EU practice and gives generic players far more predictable market-entry math.
AI copyright — still pending
One major piece has not yet landed. Korea's Copyright Act reform addressing AI-generated content — covering protection standards for AI works, training-data transparency, and content labeling — remains under parliamentary review, with enactment more likely in late 2025 or early 2026. Until then, AI-generated content in Korea sits under case-by-case analysis, and that uncertainty is itself a risk. Companies using AI in creative or marketing work would do well to document human contributions — prompt histories, editing steps — in the meantime.
The bottom line for Indonesian companies
Korea's amendments are best read not as a compliance headache but as a redrawn map. The opportunities — coexistence agreements, direct design transfers — reward companies that move deliberately. The risks — five-fold damages, export-based liability, criminal exposure for trade secret leakage — punish those who do not. For Indonesian businesses with any meaningful Korean exposure, the sensible next step is a focused review: where does our IP touch Korea, and which of these effective dates already applies to us?
This article is contributed by Mooyun Shin, Managing Partner and patent attorney at Kiyul IP Law Firm (Seoul, Korea).
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