North KoreaIntellectual Property Law, Technical Protective Measures and Liability
Intellectual Property Law, Arts. 12, 18 and 50 to 52, 2025
In force since .
A computer misuse rule binding public and private bodies.
- Obligation class
- Access restriction
As of .
What it requires
- Do not avoid or destroy the technical protective measures taken to prevent an intellectual property right from being infringed, without the permission of the party concerned or except on the conditions specified by laws.
- Do not abuse a mark indicating an intellectual property right, make a false mark, or erase the mark.
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text, as of .
In the frameworks
- NIST AI RMF
- MAP 4.1Approaches for mapping AI technology and legal risks of its components – including the use of third-party data or software – are in place, followed, and documented, as are risks of infringement of a third party’s intellectual property or other rights.
- NIST AI 600-1
- GAI-RISK-09Information Security
- GAI-RISK-12Value Chain and Component Integration
- OWASP LLM Top 10
- LLM03:2026Excessive Agency
- OWASP Agentic Top 10
- ASI03Identity and Privilege Abuse
- MIT mitigations Draft
- FINOS AIGF
- AIR-PREV-018Agent Authority Least Privilege Framework
- AIR-PREV-023Agentic System Credential Protection Framework
- ETSI EN 304 223
- 5.1.2-6Access the AI system gets to other systems and data sources is minimal and risk assessed.
Our reading of where this law's duties sit in each framework. It never says that running a control meets the law. How we read a framework against the law
Identifiers refer to ETSI EN 304 223 V2.1.1 (2025-12), © ETSI 2025, all rights reserved. ETSI owns the standard; no ETSI text (titles or sentences) is reproduced here. The standard is free to download from ETSI.
If you get it wrong
Criminal exposureYes
Criminal exposure note
Article 52 imposes penal liability under the relevant provisions of the Criminal Law where an act violating the order of intellectual property-related work constitutes a criminal offense, without stating a specific fine or term.
What this law does
Article 12 lets the holder of an intellectual property right, and a person licensed to use it, take technical protective measures to prevent the right from being infringed. Article 12 forbids avoiding or destroying those technical protective measures without the permission of the party concerned or except on the conditions specified by laws. Article 12 also forbids abusing a mark indicating the right, making a false mark, or erasing the mark.
Article 18 allows the exercise of an intellectual property right to be restricted in the interests of the State and public subject to the conditions laid down by the law. Article 50 makes the person responsible for an infringement that has caused property loss liable for compensation.
Article 51 imposes administrative liability, in accordance with the Administrative Sanctions Law and other relevant laws, for an act violating the order of intellectual property-related work that deserves administrative sanctions. Article 52 imposes penal liability, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Criminal Law, where such an act constitutes a criminal offense.
The Law applies to foreign corporate bodies and natural persons in accord with international treaties concluded or signed by the DPRK or on the principle of reciprocity. Decree No. 34 of the 13th Session of the 14th Supreme People's Assembly adopted the Law on . Article 53 provides that the Law enters into force as of .
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app crawls the web.