The purposes of this research are twofold. The one is to investigate infringement cases of domestic confectionery package designs and look into whether to judge similarities of them by a multidisciplinary approach, the semiotic analysis of similar str ...
The purposes of this research are twofold. The one is to investigate infringement cases of domestic confectionery package designs and look into whether to judge similarities of them by a multidisciplinary approach, the semiotic analysis of similar structure. The other is to suggest the possibility of practical application of the analysis to the present judical judgement. To accomplish the purposes, this research adopted as scopes package designs of gum, candy, cookie, snack and pie, chocolate, and ice cream manufactured by 6 famous large domestic confectionary companies (i.e. Lotte Confectionery Co., Ltd., Haitai Confectionery & Foods Co., Ltd., Orion Confectionery Co., Ltd., Crown Confectionery Co., Ltd., Nongshim Co., Ltd. and Binggare Co., Ltd.). This research randomly chose as the subjects of analysis five items of 3 companies whose similarities are required to be examined or which are judged to have similarities, among 343 products. This research made a comparative analysis by the following three processes. First, this research analyzes modeling, icon and the structure of language. Second, it conducts a comparative analysis of contents and expressions. Finally, it interprets the results obtained from the analysis of similarity, nonsimilarity and comparativeness. According to the final result of research, among the 5 products four items and one item are judged to have similarities and nonsimilarities, respectively.
Consequently, the following three conclusions can be drawn from the above results. First, the method of semiotic analysis enables us to judge whether confectionery package designs have similarities, based on the multidisciplinary approach. Second, the results derived from the semiotic approach for the judgement of similarity have a possibility that they can be used as useful data for judical judgement in the future. Finally, both of the multidisciplinary approach to, and the judical judgement about, the similarities of confectionery package designs have something in common with the emphasis on the user-oriented psychological judgement.