News reports said HLT International, which owns Hilton's hotels internationally, recently took legal action against a Korean motel owner, surname Yoon, for usage of the name "Hilton." Yoon runs a motel named "Hilton Motel" in Busan, and HLT demanded restricting use of the name, in addition to paying an indemnity of $25,441 (about 30 million won).
According to the reports, HLT said in a statement sent to the Seoul Central District Court that the company registered both "Hilton" and "힐튼" (in Korean) as trademarks, which therefore gives them exclusive trademark rights. The company asserted that Yoon interfered with operating profits and violated laws to prevent unfair competition.
Acknowledging the numerous numbers of lodging businesses in Korea that illegally use the trademark, HLT has been working on each case. In fact, another motel business that used the trademark in Dong-gu, Busan, recently changed its name to "Hill Motel" when the trademark rights problem started to intensify.
I'll help them out: there are 45 in Korea, including a couple (1, 2) with their own webpages. There are also 49 Hyatts.
29 comments:
I'm pretty sure the new Ramada in Gwangju is not a real Ramada, even though they use the name,logo and style. I've known people who have stayed there and asked if they can get "points" for their stay and the management always hims and haws and says they don't have their licence yet.
Korea must be a goldmine for such lawsuits. I remember seeing a small "hamburger" shop (pretty much a kimbap nara) in Incheon whose sign actually featured a KFC chicken burger that clearly had the KFC logo on the wrapper. Ballsy.
Peter I once saw a coffee shop in Hongdae that used the name and full logo of Ikea.
I'm pretty sure the new Ramada in Gwangju is not a real Ramada, even though they use the name,logo and style.
Ramada apparently has it on their website. Is that the same one?
Good for Hilton I guess. You know Koreans would flip the fuck out if they saw the illegal use of Samsung or Hyundai in another country. Like that issue with illegal DVDs of 해운대 in China. They even had a special program on TV dedicated to that crap. Why don't they start with their own damn streets.
Perhaps we should write to Michael Eisner and ask if Disney wants in on the action. Koreans think they're immune from copyright laws. How many rip-offs are there in this country? If everyone whose intellectual property was stolen by a Korean sought damages South Korea would be poorer than North Korea.
Biekimes wrote:
You know Koreans would flip the fuck out if they saw the illegal use of Samsung or Hyundai in another country.
Korean cell phones are the target of knock-offs. Not sure if I saw or heard of any Koreans "flip the fuck out," though.
||Korean cell phones are the target of knock-offs. Not sure if I saw or heard of any Koreans "flip the fuck out," though.||
Kushibo you must have missed the controversy over the Japanese attempt to get their knock off version of kimchi registered as a Japanese dish at the olympics. Or the anger of Chinese exporting cheaper kimchi to Korea.
Or there was that Korean newspaper article from a couple years ago where the reporter was outraged a Japanese restaurant in new york had Korean items on its menu. See the Japanese restaurant was packed every lunch hour with "foreigners" (ie American citizens), the Korean joint down the street was empty. And, why half the items on the Japanese restaurant's menu were, gasp, Korean items but were claimed to be Japanese dishes! (Actually the restaurant had its menu online and I counted. Only about 20% of the items were Korean and clearly identified as Korean.)
So yeah I've not seen Koreans blow their stack over knock off samsung but try to knock off their sacred dishes which emerged whole from the foam of the east sea and could not have possibly ever originated beyond their borders... and... well Koreans will blow their stack.
Puffin Watch: "I once saw a coffee shop in Hongdae that used the name and full logo of Ikea."
That's hilarious! Do customers have to assemble the coffee themselves?
As for rip-offs of Korean things, one thing I have noticed here in Canada is that Korean-owned businesses often use the name (written in both Roman letters and in Hangeul) of franchises or companies that are popular in Korea, in an attempt to use familiarity to attract Korean customers, I would assume. For example, I've eaten at a "Nolboo" restaurant in Vancouver that presumably has no connection to the Nolboo chain, and I've seen a Korean corner store here in Calgary called "E-Mart," which was nothing like the E-Mart stores in Korea.
Puffin Watch wrote:
Kushibo you must have missed the controversy over the Japanese attempt to get their knock off version of kimchi registered as a Japanese dish at the olympics. Or the anger of Chinese exporting cheaper kimchi to Korea.
I certainly missed the part where the kimchi/kimuchi in Japan or the parasites in the imported Chinese kimchi were illegal copyright or trademark violations. I thought that's what we were talking about. I mean if we're going to talk about some South Koreans somewhere "flipping the fuck out" over something, there's Tokto, Japanese textbooks, kimuchi I suppose, the Sea of Japan, Koguryŏ, American military presence, Yasukuni visits, talking about Comfort Women being volunteers, etc., etc., but what do these have to do with illegal copyright or trademark violations?
"...talking about Comfort Women being volunteers..."
Well, is there any evidence that they were coerced into going? I think they knew what they were getting into, but didnt think it would be as bad as it was.
And going by the huge numbers of Korean women willing in the sex trade in Korea, I find it hard to believe they were forced to go. Prostitution is what, 2% or 3% of GDP in Korea now?
Kushibo I'm merely pointing out you missed the intent of what the poster was saying. It is good to see you agree with the poster's intent.
1994 ||And going by the huge numbers of Korean women willing in the sex trade in Korea, I find it hard to believe they were forced to go.||
Are there really a huge number of women willingly entering into a life of prostitution in Korea? Forgive me if I don't take your authority on this. For that claim, I'd like to see evidence too.
Kushibo I'm merely pointing out you missed the intent of what the poster was saying. It is good to see you agree with the poster's intent.
His original intent was that Koreans would flip the fuck out if they saw the illegal use of Samsung or Hyundai in another country.
But those things are illegally copied and you don't typically see anybody "flipping the fuck out," so no, I don't agree with his "intent," unless his intent was something other than what he was talking about.
WORD VERIFICATION: innocup
As in, "When they gave me the drug test, they told me to pee innocup."
I think I stayed at this "Hilton" when I went to Busan!
@1994
From what I've heard and read, many of the prostitutes in Korea are women who are not "willing", but have been forced into repaying family debts to gangsters; debts which will, of course, never be paid in full.
Though why we're talking about this in a thread about Hilton suing a Korean motel is beyond me.
||His original intent was that Koreans would flip the fuck out if they saw the illegal use of Samsung or Hyundai in another country.||
I don't agree.
Why don't we let him explain his intent?
Peter
Yeah they're opening a Milgiore right around the corner from me. Same logo and everything. There's a couple Hyundae department store here (little more than small store fronts). At first I assumed they were just borrowing the name (my GF laughed her ass off when she first say one) but now I'm thinking they're like catalog order type fronts. You can walk in and order from the real Hyundae department store via the store front.
Puffin Watch, I don't know how many hours there are in a day where you're from, but where I am, my time is limited to things that matter and may actually be going somewhere.
You say that's not his intent but I quoted him directly. I'm not going to waste time arguing with someone who shifts their definitions or meaning around because they're original point (in this case, that "Koreans would flip the fuck out if they saw the illegal use of Samsung or Hyundai in another country") was demonstrated to be false. Not that a shifting is what he has done, but that's all that could be done if we "let him explain his intent." It was already right there.
This conversation, as Peter noted, has deteriorated, beyond the point I wish to continue participation. I'll just end my participation by saying that there are plenty of books published outside Korea that deal with the Comfort Women issue (George Hicks comes to mind as one of the earlier works); and some of the people in the comment section on this post suffer from regarding all Koreans by the worst traits you find among any Koreans (look how many times "Koreans" or "the Koreans" is used as if all 49 million ROKers are the same and/or culpable for the actions of a few percent of the population). When I hear native Koreans say Americans do some certain thing or Canadians are a certain way or foreigners act like this, it makes me cringe. This is essentially no different.
Oh, and that an inaccurately inferred hypocrisy is being perceived which would only be valid if the same people in Korea who are committing and allowing copyright/trademark violations are the same individual people getting upset about it when it happens to Korean products somewhere else.
Let's quit talking about prostitution and keep on topic with:
* motels and hotels
* Hilton, Hyatt, etc.
* copyright infringement
Anything steering the conversation back to prostitutes or comfort woman will be removed, first and last warning.
||I'm not going to waste time arguing with someone who shifts their definitions or meaning around because they're original point (in this case, that "Koreans would flip the fuck out if they saw the illegal use of Samsung or Hyundai in another country") was demonstrated to be false.||
But you didn't demonstrate it to be false. You just matched his claim with your own anecdotal observation.
Anyway, I simply don't agree with your narrow understanding of what could be a message dashed off in haste. I tend to grant charity to claims. You don't. The least you could do is allow him the dignity of being able to clarify his position. But you prefer to take your bat 'n' ball and storm off in a huff. Sure.
Kushibo, the sheer number of times I've seen you defend something with "what they meant was..." is astounding considering you're unwilling to believe that in this case someone could have meant something other than what you've quoted them as saying.
That being said, if a hotel chain were to open in the U.S. called "Samsung Hotel" you bet the corporate branch office in the U.S. would immediately file charges. And in the ilbo's the next day there would be poorly written articles covering the news. And by the end of that week there would be a TV news program covering the netizens outrage over the exploitation of a Korean iconic name in an effort to attract customers.
Is that what you meant Bikimes?
Kushibo, the sheer number of times I've seen you defend something with "what they meant was..." is astounding considering you're unwilling to believe that in this case someone could have meant something other than what you've quoted them as saying.
Apples and oranges. We're mostly an native English-speaking lots writing clear sentences in English, so I don't see where there was much interpretation for "You know Koreans would flip the fuck out if they saw the illegal use of Samsung or Hyundai in another country." We're not talking in English about something that was said or thought in Korean or by a non-native English speaker whose native language is in Korea and we're applying newbie cultural interpretations to a place and culture we've lived only a tiny fraction of our lives. Very different situation.
But okay, in all seriousness, maybe "You know Koreans would flip the fuck out if they saw the illegal use of Samsung or Hyundai in another country" has a different interpretation from Samsung or Hyundai actually being illegally used.
That being said, if a hotel chain were to open in the U.S. called "Samsung Hotel" you bet the corporate branch office in the U.S. would immediately file charges. And in the ilbo's the next day there would be poorly written articles covering the news. And by the end of that week there would be a TV news program covering the netizens outrage over the exploitation of a Korean iconic name in an effort to attract customers.
You, Biekimes, and Puffin Watch keep using hypotheticals ("if they saw the illegal use of Samsung or Hyundai in another country," and "if a hotel chain were to open") but we have already seen in non-hypothetical (i.e., actual) situations that Samsung, LG, and other Korean companies do in fact become the victim of knock-offs, just like the Hilton. In fact, it is a fairly common situation, something I've read about in the American media, not the Korean media (are the American media "flipping the fuck out"?).
Yet, it hasn't played out the way you or Biekimes hypothesized. No "flipping the fuck out" or much more in the press than something like this Hilton article.
I wrote:
You, Biekimes, and Puffin Watch keep using hypotheticals
My bad. Puffin Watch did not offer a hypothetical. Sloppy of me.
Then allow me to speak in the hypothetical:
Japanese companies start knocking off Samsung and Hyundai products. Every woman in Japan is seen with a "Samshung", Shamsung, Samulsung, etc product slung under her arm.
Despite repeated official protests the Japanese governments drags its feet trying to curtail the knock offs and Japanese courts claim there's no IP violation.
Hmmm. Of course Koreans would greet this with the calm resolve they manifest when Japanese try to lay claim to kimchi.
Right?
Puffin Watch wrote:
Japanese companies start knocking off Samsung and Hyundai products. Every woman in Japan is seen with a "Samshung", Shamsung, Samulsung, etc product slung under her arm.
Despite repeated official protests the Japanese governments drags its feet trying to curtail the knock offs and Japanese courts claim there's no IP violation.
How many degrees away from this are we going to get?
First off, let me remind you of the original sentence:
You know Koreans would flip the fuck out if they saw the illegal use of Samsung or Hyundai in another country.
But now it's not any country, your hypothetical is just Japan. And it's not some products here and there, making up a tiny percentage of the whole, as in the Hilton case, but "every women in Japan" carrying one.
I mean, the original hypothetical was already negated because in real life there are regular, repeated, and constant illegal uses of Samsung or Hyundai in other countries, yet there has been no "flipping the fuck out."
So if you have to keep adding new premises to it to make the hypothetical work, maybe it doesn't really work as well as you think.
If this really happened in Japan, and it were a few phones making up a small percent, I think it would be met with bemused interest. The Korean media is highly distrustful of China, which has become the new bogeyman as of late, but the knockoff Korean phones there barely get any notice.
Now if the fake Korean phones were dominating the phone market in Japan — an analogy completely different from the original hypothetical and entirely different from the Hilton case — then that might cause some angry op-eds and stupid comments on Naver from the Comment Super Tribe.
Correct me if I'm wrong but Japan is another country? You don't doubt if this happened in Japan Koreans would flip out?
I don't add premises. I only create a "shoe is on the other foot" condition that is equal to the situation in Korea.
Where do you wish to move your goal post now, Kushibo?
Okay, so I took the sentence, "You know Koreans would flip the fuck out if they saw the illegal use of Samsung or Hyundai in another country," to mean in any other country (or at least any other country with whom South Korea has a significant connection with), while you took it to mean certain other countries. I think that's a suspect interpretation on your part, but I'll agree to disagree.
I personally habitually stay in a Hilton Motel In Anam in Seoul. I don't think I've ever really mistaken it for a Hilton Hotel, if I had, I would have avoided it. I enjoy the delicious irony of staying in a 30 dollar a night shit-hole that says Hilton.
I'm not a big fan of intellectual property rights as they stand. I like the way that Jello and Bandaid ended up to be common nouns over time. I think we should apply that same logic to all things so ubiquitous as to be unmistakably themselves or not.
For instance, I'm going to start referring to my own urine as Coke. And when I need the bathroom, I'll say 'Im gonna go have a coke' and if anyone mistakes my coke and actual Coke brand Cola, then they are buffoons.
Also, on the subject of flipping the fuck out. You people flip the fuck out. It's pretty comical. I see you flipping the fuck out and I think, 'those guys must be Korean, the way they're flipping the fuck out', as if someone was counterfeiting your mom... in the sea of Japan.
All things considered, if you're that much of a nationalist that you flip the f out over a product that originates in your country, but is made overseas(probably China, "nature's factory"), and whose profits go to someone much richer than yourself and basically you get no benefit from, then you sir are an asshole.
Go ahead, make a fake mcdonalds. I would love to see Donald McRonald dancing around in his big green shoes for my entertainment while I eat a migbac in downtown Phnom Penh. That would be aaaaaaawesome.
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