자동차 외관 부품 디자인에 대한 수리 조항(Repair Clause) 도입에 관한 연구

A Study on the Adoption of the Repair Clause for Auto Replacement Parts

Korea is now the automobile power house with the world ranking number five in automobile manufacturing. The Korean Design Protection Law has provided design protection for not just the entire exterior of automobiles, but also the replacement parts of the exterior. Thus, under the protective umbrella of the Design Protection Law, the automobile manufacturers dominated the replacement parts market, naturally charging higher prices for their brand inscribed OEM parts in comparison with non-OEM parts. So called "repair clause" has been recently suggested as a proposed bill to solve this problem. A design protection exemption for automobile replacement parts can be provided by adding the repair clause to the relevant section of the existing Design Protection Law. Starting from the early 2000's, there have been numerous and extensive attempts in the U.S. and the European Union to incorporate the repair clause into their respective design protection laws. But, both in the U.S. and the E.U., the repair clause had never passed the point of a proposed bill and eventually failed to become an enacted law. In this study, arguments for and against the adoption of the repair clause in the numerous proposed U.S. bills and cases of other nations are examined and analyzed to find reasons for failure of the repair clause.