DSP Media files to trademark KARA’s name

With the industry still reeling from the news that KARA’s Seungyeon, Nicole, Hara, and Jiyoung were filing to terminate their exclusive contracts with their agency, DSP Media, it was hit with yet another shocking piece of news.

It was reported that DSP Media has applied for trademark rights over the ‘KARA’ name – many had already believed that the ‘KARA’ name was patented by this point, considering the strength of the group’s success.

According to information revealed by a patent browser on January 19th, DSP Media requested to trademark 85 different clauses regarding KARA on December 7th, 2010. Because it is still only an application, DSP Media does not have rights over the name yet, but should it become finalized, the members will need special permission from DSP in order to continue under the name of ‘KARA’.

Such recent developments have raised speculations over whether DSP Media predicted KARA’s move and attempted to take advantage of the situation by submitting the patent.

Trademark rights have always been a central issue whenever artists move onto different agencies, as the original agency is reluctant to allow those artists to promote under the same name once they leave.

The four girls were asked whether they would be open to compromising with DSP Media, in regards to their lawsuit against them. Hong Myungho of Trademark spoke through Star News and replied, “Before we reported the news to the public, we discussed with the parents of the four members and considered everyones’ opinions. Nobody has expressed a desire to continue moving forward with DSP Media. We will have to come to an agreement on various outstanding issues with DSP Media, in order to move on with the termination.”

When asked why Park Gyuri was excluded from their report, Hong replied, “We are working only for the four members, so we are not sure of Gyuri’s position. We’ve been in discussion with the members’ parents since two months ago. At the time, they attempted several times to reach a compromise with their agency, but because they could not reach one, they decided to terminate their contracts instead.”