Hapcheon-gun Holds Deliberation Meeting of Agricultural Products Joint Trademark Management Committee

Change of Agricultural Product Joint Trademark and Item Reorganization

Hapcheon-gun, Gyeongnam announced on the 6th that it held the Agricultural Products Collective Trademark Management Deliberation Committee at the small conference room of the county office to use the agricultural products collective trademark and reorganize the product items.

The existing Hapcheon-gun agricultural products collective trademark, ‘Haewa人,’ was found to be difficult for consumers to recognize as a unique trademark of Hapcheon-gun agricultural products according to a consumer awareness survey, leading to opinions to use ‘Suryohan Hapcheon,’ which has superior brand power both domestically and internationally, as the agricultural products collective trademark.

Accordingly, the deliberation committee proposed the agenda of ‘Changing the Agricultural Products Collective Trademark and Reorganizing Product Items,’ deciding to change the existing ‘Haewa人’ trademark to ‘Suryohan Hapcheon’ and to reorganize the detailed items registered under the previous collective trademark.

Hapcheon County is conducting a review meeting for changing the agricultural products' collective trademark.

For the registration of the mark, the NICE (Nomenclature of International Goods and Services) classification is divided into a total of 45 product groups, and Hapcheon-gun plans to expand the detailed classifications registered with the Korean Intellectual Property Office from 6 to 10 and to reorganize similar items from 828 to a final 262 items for trademark registration.

It takes up to about one year to register the trademark with the Korean Intellectual Property Office, and the trademark’s effect starts from the application date.

Accordingly, Hapcheon-gun plans to apply for the trademark starting in October, and the use of the changed trademark (Suryohan Hapcheon) will be possible after the application. For farms approved to use the existing collective trademark, a certain period of concurrent use will be allowed, and related ordinances will be revised in the future.

Chairman Lee Seon-gi said, “We will strive to elevate ‘Suryohan Hapcheon,’ Hapcheon-gun’s representative brand, as a premium brand by changing it to the agricultural products collective trademark to improve brand awareness and value.”