Gfriend Gains Trademark Rights

[sanasideup]

Members of disbanded girl group Gfriend - Sowon, Yerin, Eunha, Yuju, SinB, and Umji - recently gained the rights for the trademark of the name Gfriend. This means that the 6 women will be able to promote as a group under the name Gfriend without needing the approval of Source Music, their former label.

Source Music attempted to appeal the trademark on the name Gfriend, which would have given them full rights to anything associated with the Gfriend name. However, the Korean Intellectual Property Rights denied this request. As a result, Source Music attempted to trademark the name G-friend. This request was also denied because it is still an English version of 여자친구 (yeoja chingu/Gfriend's name in Korean), which has been determined to belong to Sowon, Yerin, Eunha, Yuju, SinB, and Umji. The KIRP also rejected Source's Musics request due to possible misuse and consumer deception because most people associate the name Gfriend with the members of Gfriend.
In order to obtain the rights to the name Gfriend, all 6 former members of the group would have to consent. If they do not, Source Music will be required to give up all use of the name Gfriend, as well as anything associated with the Gfriend name (trophies, music, merch, etc). If they refuse, the rightful trademark owner (the girls) are legally eligible to sue.

Many fans speculate a Gfriend reunion of some sort is in the works among the members.​

 

[yunaing]

Perhaps they could pull a GOT7 situation where they persue their own activities but have a group comeback every once in a while. The only issue would be VIVIZ as they have their own company and contract they need to manage

 

[sanasideup]

imo, there is no way in hell the girls - and esp sinb - are gonna consent to giving source music the trademark rights. a gfriend reunion is definitely in the works

 

[sanasideup]

Perhaps they could pull a GOT7 situation where they persue their own activities but have a group comeback every once in a while. The only issue would be VIVIZ as they have their own company and contract they need to manage

that's kinda what i'm thinking they'll do. if i had to guess, i'd say smth big (or semi-big) is gonna happen, which would most likely be them releasing an album and promoting it. and then, after promotions are over, they'd go back to their regular activites and be kinda like got7, like you said

 

[chaerifyyy]

I'm kinda happy and excited but im going to wait and see what happens

 

[LostInTheDream]

Perhaps they could pull a GOT7 situation where they persue their own activities but have a group comeback every once in a while. The only issue would be VIVIZ as they have their own company and contract they need to manage

I think considering BPM let them perform Gfriend songs on Queendom (also their original song was from Source Music's archives or something) it may not be too difficult to convince them.

 

[🎀♡RYU♡🎀]

Gfriend reunion or comeback soon, hopefully. Maybe they’ll pull a GOT7 situation like @shinnayu said

 

[sanasideup]

UPDATE: Viviz is now listed as as a Gfriend subunit on Melon.