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Roh Soh-yeong filed 'nabicoin' trademark right after divorce lawsuit… Is she entering the cryptocurrency market?

[비즈한국] The divorce lawsuit between SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won and Art Center Nabi Director Roh Soh-yeong, which has been ongoing for seven years, is now facing its final stage: the Supreme Court review. However, it was belatedly revealed through Biz Hankook’s reporting that Director Roh filed for the ‘nabicoin’ trademark in 2018, shortly after the divorce proceedings began. It has been confirmed that a cryptocurrency with the same name has already been launched in Arizona, USA, and is currently being prepared for listing on a DEX exchange this December, with a goal to list on a CEX exchange in the first quarter of next year.

It was confirmed that Director Roh Soh-yeong applied for the ‘nabicoin’ trademark with the Korean Intellectual Property Office in August 2018. According to KIPRIS, the intellectual property search service, Director Roh filed the trademark application for ‘nabicoin’ on August 20, 2018, and the patent office decided to register the trademark in July 2019. Unlike the common practice in Korea of filing trademarks in both Korean and English simultaneously, Director Roh only filed for the English term ‘nabicoin’ and did not apply for ‘나비코인’ (Nabi Coin). ‘nabicoin’ is an internationally registered trademark that will expire in July 2029, though the registrant can renew the trademark term every 10 years.

In ‘nabicoin’, ‘nabi’ shares the same English spelling as ‘Nabi’ from ‘Art Center Nabi’, the art gallery run by Director Roh. Coincidentally, SK Group uses the ‘Happy Wing’, which resembles a butterfly, in its corporate identity. The trademark for ‘art center nabi’ was filed and is held by Director Roh Soh-yeong as of September 2015.

When applying for the ‘nabicoin’ trademark, Director Roh listed the designated goods (services) as ‘wholesale, retail, purchasing agency, sales agency, and brokerage for IC cards with electronic money functions,’ and ‘wholesale, retail, purchasing agency, sales agency, and brokerage for downloadable computer programs for electronic money.’ Given that electronic money includes cryptocurrency and the name contains ‘coin’, it is speculated that ‘nabicoin’ is intended as a cryptocurrency trademark.

Furthermore, from August 17 to August 19, 2018, just before filing the ‘nabicoin’ trademark, Art Center Nabi, led by Director Roh, hosted the blockchain festival ‘2018 Crypto on The Beach’ in collaboration with cryptocurrency exchange GOPAX. A source who participated in the festival at the time stated, “Director Roh Soh-yeong showed a very deep interest in cryptocurrency.”

In fact, it has been confirmed that a cryptocurrency named ‘nabicoin’ has already been launched in Arizona, USA. ‘nabicoin’ is working toward listing on a DEX exchange this December and a CEX exchange in the first quarter of next year, and it has even sold artworks applying NFT (Non-Fungible Token) technology. The ‘nabicoin’ website uses an image of a butterfly, which suggests that ‘nabi’ is derived from the Korean word for butterfly.

However, no connection between the ‘nabicoin’ cryptocurrency and Director Roh Soh-yeong has been confirmed. An IT expert at an investigative agency who requested anonymity explained, “Just as it is unknown who created Bitcoin, it cannot be confirmed whether the creator of ‘nabicoin’ is Director Roh Soh-yeong, the trademark applicant.” An official from Art Center Nabi also stated, “The ‘nabicoin’ launched in the US has nothing to do with Director Roh. Just because ‘coin’ is in a trademark does not mean it is a cryptocurrency. Director Roh simply filed for the trademark in her personal name six years ago for an educational platform business.”

Meanwhile, Director Roh also filed for trademarks for ‘Turing Academy’ in September 2015 and ‘carechain’ in January 2018. Turing Academy was classified under education, book publishing, museum operations, and corporate training, while carechain was classified under database storage, computer programming in the medical field, and data encryption/decryption and certification. It has been confirmed that like ‘nabicoin’, a solution provider with the same ‘carechain’ trademark was established in the British Indian Ocean Territory in 2020.