In Oxy Corporation (Oxy) v. Sang Won Co. (Sang Won), the former owned a registration on the trademark OXYCLEAN since 1984 for bleaching agents, and manufactured and distributed oxygenated bleaching powder using this mark on a distinctive package. Sang Won acquired the assets of a third party that had been producing and selling a bleaching agent since 1991 under the trademark OXYWHITE and from 1996 this product was sold in a package similar to the one marketed by Oxy.

Oxy filed a civil suit under the Unfair Competition Prevention Act (UCPA) against Sang Won in the Seoul District Court seeking a permanent injunction to restrain them from using the trade dress similar to the package in which the OXYCLEAN product was sold. Article 2 of the UCPA provides that the act of using a trade dress that is identical or similar to one which is well known in Korea, or selling, distributing a product or using another's "identifier" in such a way as to cause confusion may be considered an act of unfair competition and subject to court action.

Oxy submitted that their OXYCLEAN product had gross sales which reached $130 million by 1997, and that the product had been extensively advertised in Korea. Sang Won claimed that, as the two marks had been used concurrently in the same market for several years, there was little likelihood of confusion, and that the OXYCLEAN package was neither well-known among consumers in Korea nor similar to the OXYWHITE package.

The Seoul District Court rejected Sang Won's arguments, inter alia, on the ground that the OXYCLEAN packaging was well known as identifying the bleaching agent manufactured by Oxy since at least January 1991. The court further ruled that the OXYWHITE package was sufficiently similar to the OXYCLEAN package in its composition, shape, color combination, letters and the design on the label as to cause confusion among consumers. The Court granted a permanent injunction, ordering Sang Won to destroy the OXYWHITE packages and the molds used for their production, and also ordered the defendant to publish statements of apology in three local newspapers.

This is an important decision, since it appears to be the first case in which trade dress, or a well-known "identifier" of a product or business, was held to be protectable under the UCPA in Korea.