A dispute over campaign logos erupted between two presidential hopefuls of the ruling Saenuri Party Monday as former presidential chief-of-staff Yim Tae-hee’s team claimed that frontrunner Park Geun-hye copied its image.

Park’s campaign unveiled its logo Sunday featuring a red speech bubble with Park’s initials in hangeul, in a design made to look like a smiley face.

Similarly, Yim’s logo, designed by a college student in May, features a blue circle and his initials in Korean.

“The emoticon symbolizing former chairwoman Park is almost identical to that used by Yim. We have been using this emoticon since May in all our communication materials such as name cards and envelops,” Yim’s campaign team said.

Yoon Seong-wook, in charge of Yim’s strategic communications, said, “They could have done it without knowing. But because our party is at a critical time ahead of the primary, (Park’s side) should voluntarily stop using the logo.

“We fear that Park’s side may go on and ignore our calls. We are thus undertaking legal reviews for ways to ban the use of the logo.”

Park’s camp flatly denied the allegation.

“It is out of the question to think that it is a copy from (Yim’s) just because we use the same idea of hangeul initials. We believe the public will be a better judge of (Yim’s claims),” said Cho Yoon-sun, a spokeswoman for Park’s campaign committee.

Designer Byeon Choo-seok in charge of Park’s media communications explained the design incorporated hangeul consonants instead of using the alphabetical acronym as was often done by previous presidential candidates.

Experts, meanwhile, said it was questionable whether the dispute would escalate into a legal conflict.

“In terms of copyright, letters (initial consonants) themselves are not subject to protection. Taking someone else’s idea or motif is not in violation of the relevant laws as long as they were expressed differently. What are protected are the designs,” said Lee Sang-yun, partner patent lawyer of Dae-A International IP & Law Firm.

“In terms of trademarks, the letters or the illustration must be identical in order to be in violation of the relevant laws,” he said.

According to Yoon, Yim’s camp has not submitted a copyright or trademark application for its logo.

By Lee Joo-hee (jhl@heraldcorp.com)