加强品牌知识产权保护：Temu与韩国知识产权保护院签署谅解备忘录

This article covers the core news that cross-border e-commerce platform Temu has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on intellectual property rights (IPR) protection with the Korea Intellectual Property Protection Agency (KOIPA), to cooperate on IPR protection for South Korean domestic brands. Below are the key takeaways:

1. Arrangements for the cooperation: The two parties will set up a dedicated communication channel to resolve infringement issues rapidly. Temu will leverage technology and dedicated teams to identify and remove infringing product links, while KOIPA will be responsible for verifying IPR ownership and guiding South Korean companies on how to use Temu's IPR protection tools.

2. Details of Temu's existing IPR protection system: Infringement screening is embedded at every stage of operations, with active monitoring covering more than 15,000 brands. The system relies on a database of over 4.7 million images and 9.5 million keywords for comparison, and the average resolution time for infringement claims is less than 24 hours.

3. Supporting measures for consumers and brands: Temu has launched a consumer search blocking feature that returns no results and displays a warning when users search for counterfeit-related terms. It has blocked more than 200 million such searches to date. The platform also runs a Brand Guard program that provides protection services even for brands that have not yet listed products on Temu.

This article shares valuable insights on channel building and IPR protection for brands planning to expand globally, especially South Korean domestic brands.

1. IPR protection opportunities for global expansion channels: Temu has reached an official cooperation agreement with South Korea's national IPR authority, providing comprehensive IPR protection for South Korean domestic brands on the platform, addressing the common pain point of frequent infringement issues during global expansion. Even brands not yet registered on Temu can access protection services via the Brand Guard program.

2. Concrete institutional support for protection: The two parties have established a dedicated communication channel that enables rapid response and resolution of infringement issues. Temu handles technical identification and removal of infringing products, while KOIPA provides official support by verifying IPR ownership. This model delivers far faster processing than conventional approaches, with an average resolution time of less than 24 hours.

3. Downstream consumer-side control support: Temu blocks searches for counterfeit-related keywords across all its operating markets globally, with over 200 million searches blocked to date. This reduces customer diversion to counterfeit products, lowers the damage of fakes to brand value, and helps protect brand reputation.

For cross-border e-commerce sellers, especially South Korean domestic brand sellers planning to join Temu, this article provides multi-dimensional insights on compliance requirements, market opportunities, and platform support.

1. Market development opportunities: Following Temu's cooperation with South Korea's official IPR protection agency, compliant and legitimate sellers will receive more comprehensive protection for their IPR rights. The platform will crack down on infringing and counterfeit goods faster, reducing the "bad money drives out good" dynamic and creating better conditions for legitimate sellers to grow their market share.

2. Compliance risk reminders: Temu has embedded IPR risk screening across all processes: seller vetting, pre-listing checks, and 24/7 post-listing monitoring. Infringing products are quickly identified and removed, so sellers must prioritize IPR compliance to avoid losses from violations.

3. Usable platform resources: The platform operates a seller education center that offers free IPR compliance courses, and the Brand Guard program provides one-on-one dedicated support. KOIPA also guides South Korean businesses on using the platform's IPR protection tools, and sellers can leverage these resources to improve their own compliance standards.

For factories with self-owned brands looking to enter the cross-border e-commerce market, this article offers valuable insights on business opportunities and digital transformation.

1. New opportunities for global market expansion: Temu is rapidly expanding its global business, and its cooperation with South Korea's official IPR agency to improve its protection system demonstrates the platform's growing focus on protecting the rights of legitimate brands. Factories with owned brands can leverage the platform to expand globally, with more reliable protection for their intellectual property and lower cross-border expansion risks.

2. Compliance guidance for production: The platform now conducts end-to-end screening for infringing products, and infringing goods are removed quickly. Factories must complete IPR compliance checks during the product R&D, production and selection stages to avoid subsequent losses from producing infringing goods; compliance is a fundamental requirement to access the platform.

3. Insights for e-commerce digital transformation: Temu relies on digital technology to enable end-to-end IPR monitoring, leveraging a large database for rapid comparison to resolve infringement issues within 24 hours. Factories can adopt this end-to-end digital control approach when advancing their e-commerce transformation to improve their operational compliance and efficiency.

For service providers offering e-commerce compliance and IPR protection services, this article provides insights on industry trends, client pain points, and collaboration models.

1. Client pain points and market opportunities: As global brands including South Korean brands accelerate cross-regional e-commerce expansion, IPR infringement has become an increasingly prominent problem. Brands and cross-border platforms both have strong demand for IPR protection, especially a large unmet need for cross-border IPR ownership verification and infringement resolution, which represents a key growth opportunity for service providers.

2. Reference for existing cooperation models: A new division-of-labor cooperation model has emerged, pairing cross-border platforms with official IPR agencies in target markets: the platform handles technical identification and removal of infringing products, while the official authority verifies IPR ownership. This model solves the core pain point that cross-border platforms cannot independently verify ownership of IPR for local overseas brands, and can serve as a reference for future service provider collaborations.

3. Industry technology development trends: IPR protection has shifted to full-link digital operation, relying on large databases for image and keyword comparison to enable 24/7 monitoring and resolution of infringement within 24 hours. Protection has also expanded downstream to include consumer education, and technology enablement has become the core development direction for the IPR protection service industry.

For cross-border e-commerce platforms, this article shares Temu's latest practices in IPR protection, merchant acquisition, operations and risk mitigation, offering many valuable actionable insights.

1. Experience for building an IPR protection system: Platforms can establish official cooperation with local official IPR agencies in target markets, sign MOUs to set up dedicated communication channels, and divide labor to handle infringement issues. This approach improves the authority of infringement resolution, and solves the core pain point that cross-border platforms cannot independently verify IPR ownership of local brands.

2. Reference for full-link infringement control: Platforms can embed IPR risk screening across all stages: seller vetting, pre-listing checks, and post-listing active monitoring. They can build a large active monitoring database covering thousands of brands, leverage image and keyword matching for rapid identification, cut the average infringement resolution time to under 24 hours, and open protection services to non-registered brands to drive brand onboarding.

3. Risk mitigation practices: In addition to platform-side control, platforms can implement consumer education on the user end, launch counterfeit keyword blocking to reduce exposure of counterfeit goods. This discourages consumers from purchasing fakes, improves platform trustworthiness, mitigates the reputational risk that counterfeits bring to platforms, and supports merchant acquisition and long-term growth.

For researchers studying the cross-border e-commerce industry and IPR protection, this article presents the latest developments in the field of cross-border e-commerce IPR protection, with many valuable insights for research.

1. New industry cooperation trends: Cross-border e-commerce platforms are now actively partnering with official IPR agencies in target markets to build cross-regional IPR protection systems together. This public-private cooperation model is a new exploration to address infringement issues amid global brand expansion, solves the core pain point that cross-border platforms cannot independently verify IPR ownership of overseas brands, and represents a new development direction for the industry.

2. Business model innovation: Temu has built a full-link IPR protection system covering pre-onboarding screening, 24/7 in-market monitoring, rapid infringement resolution, dedicated brand services, seller compliance education and consumer-side education. It also opens protection services to brands not yet onboarding the platform. This full-link, open protection system is a new experiment in compliance building for cross-border e-commerce platforms.

3. New research directions for industry issues: As global brands accelerate cross-regional e-commerce expansion, IPR infringement has become a common industry-wide problem. It cannot be solved by platforms alone or by local authorities alone, and requires cross-stakeholder, cross-region collaboration. This new industry problem warrants further in-depth research.