After School's Gahi loses trademark battle against cosmetics brand KAHI

Singer Gahi, a former member of After School, registered the trademark "KAHI" for use in selling dietary supplements — only to have the registration invalidated after losing a lawsuit brought by cosmetics brand KAHI.

The Patent Court recently disclosed that it ruled in favor of KAHI in April in the company's suit seeking to void Gahi's trademark registration, with the ruling confirmed in May.

Gahi had applied to register the trademark "KAHI" in 2021 for use on dietary supplements and similar products, receiving approval in December 2023. The cosmetics company then moved to invalidate the registration, arguing that the identical name could confuse consumers.

Gahi rebuffed the claim, saying she had built her public profile under the stage name "Gahi" (Kahi) before the cosmetics company was even founded, and that she had simply used her own name.

The Korean Intellectual Property Trial and Appeal Board, acting as the first instance, sided with Gahi, finding that the two products were not similar and lacked a close economic relationship.

The Patent Court reversed that decision on appeal. The court noted that the cosmetics company had been selling and advertising its products through multiple channels since April 2020, that its "Multi Balm" product had surpassed 10 million units sold in 2022, and that the brand had built wide recognition through product placements in several popular drama series through 2023. By December 2023, when Gahi's trademark was registered, the cosmetics brand KAHI was already widely known to the public.

The court also overturned the first-instance finding that cosmetics and health food products were dissimilar. It reasoned that many large cosmetics companies also sell health food products, and that the two categories share a connection in that both are applied directly to the body for health maintenance, improvement or cosmetic purposes.

"Given the growing trend of companies producing and selling both cosmetics and dietary supplements together, there is a risk that consumers could mistake the two products as coming from the same company," the court said.