Golf Lawsuit in Korea: Golfzon Screen Golf Copyright Case

South Korea’s Supreme Court ruled on February 26, 2026 that golf course designs can qualify for copyright protection, reviving infringement claims against Golfzon, the country’s dominant screen golf simulator company, for digitally recreating real courses without permission from the architects who designed them. The decision in the screen golf copyright lawsuit in Korea overturned a Seoul High Court ruling that had treated course layouts as purely functional works outside copyright’s reach, and it sent both underlying cases back to the appellate court to decide damages under the new standard.¹²

Who Sued Golfzon and What They Wanted

Two sets of designers brought the litigation, and the Supreme Court treated the appeals together as Case Nos. 2024Da228661 and 2024Da229671.¹

The first suit, filed in 2018, came from Orange Engineering and Songho Golf Design, both affiliated with the Korea Golf Course Designers Association. They said Golfzon had turned their designs for 19 courses into 3D digital content for its simulators without authorization, and they wanted that content removed along with damages.³

The second case was brought by Golfplan, a U.S. firm that has designed more than 25 courses in South Korea, including The Club at Nine Bridges.⁴ Golfplan alleged that Golfzon had recreated 11 of its courses after securing agreements only with the course owners, not with Golfplan as the designer.⁵ Combined, the plaintiffs sought roughly 30.71 billion won, about $22 million.⁶

The central legal question was narrow but consequential. Golfzon had been paying course owners for permission to digitize their properties. It had not been paying the architects who drew the layouts. Whether that arrangement was enough turned on whether a course design is a copyrightable work at all.

What the Supreme Court Held

The First Division held that golf course designs are not automatically excluded from copyright simply because they serve a functional purpose. Constraints such as the rules of golf, site topography, and safety requirements do not, on their own, extinguish creativity. A designer still makes creative choices in how components are selected, arranged, and combined.² Even though every course contains teeing grounds, bunkers, and greens, the particular way an architect combines those elements to shape playing strategy, introduce variation, and harmonize with the landscape can amount to protectable expression.¹

The Court drew a firm line between the land and the design. Owning or operating a course does not carry with it the right to reproduce the underlying design. That right stays with the designer. Screen golf operators that obtained consent only from course owners were not shielded from infringement claims by the architects.⁵

The justices also criticized the appellate court for dismissing the copyright claims without a substantive examination of the actual designs. Lower courts, they said, must analyze whether a functional work reflects independent creative expression rather than denying protection summarily.⁵

No final damages number came out of the Supreme Court. Both cases were remanded to the Seoul High Court, which must now apply the new standard, decide whether the specific designs at issue clear the originality threshold, and if so, calculate what Golfzon owes.⁷

How the Lower Courts Had Ruled

The trial court had sided with the designers, recognizing golf courses as creative works and awarding roughly 2.8 billion won, well below the amount plaintiffs sought because the court rejected the full projected lost-profits figure.⁸³

In February 2024, the Seoul High Court reversed and ruled for Golfzon. That court held that golf course designs are fundamentally functional, and that topography, the rules of golf, safety requirements, and standardized components like fairways, bunkers, and greens constrain a designer’s choices so heavily that nothing creative remains to protect.⁹ Under that reasoning, simulator companies could freely reproduce any layout. The Supreme Court’s 2026 decision rejected that framework.

What the Ruling Means for Golfzon and Other Operators

Golfzon’s business rests on digitizing real courses, and it controls an estimated 70 to 75 percent of the Korean simulator market.¹⁰ It also has more than 52,000 simulator installations worldwide.¹¹ The remand puts the company on the hook for damages on any of the 30 courses at issue that the Seoul High Court finds sufficiently original, and it also changes the ground rules going forward.

Around 50 domestic operators beyond Golfzon, including Kakao VX and SG Golf, face the same shift. They will need to negotiate individual licensing contracts with designers for courses they have already digitized and any they add later. Some operators are expected to pivot toward building entirely virtual courses or to pull existing copyrighted layouts from their systems to avoid royalty costs. Analysts also expect licensing fees to be passed on to players through higher screen golf prices, on top of pressure already coming from rent and labor.⁶

David M. Dale, CEO of Golfplan, said the ruling recognizes course design as “a form of creative expression and intellectual property” rather than “merely functional land development,” and called for “appropriate licensing and collaboration” going forward.¹²

How Korea Now Compares Internationally

This appears to be the first time any supreme court has recognized golf course design as copyrightable.⁶ The Korean court had opened the door earlier: a 2020 decision acknowledged that a golf course could be protectable if its overall design showed creative individuality apart from functional elements, though plaintiffs struggled to meet that standard in practice. The 2026 ruling clarifies that courts should examine the selection, arrangement, and combination of components rather than default to denying protection because a work has a functional purpose.¹

In the United States, golf courses have generally not been treated as copyrightable. The BIRDIE Act (H.R. 7228), introduced in February 2024 by Representatives Brian Fitzpatrick and Jimmy Panetta, would bring golf course designs within the definition of “architectural works” under U.S. copyright law, but it has not been enacted.¹³ In both the United States and Europe, screen golf operators commonly sign copyright agreements with course owners and designers when recreating layouts, but that has been driven by industry practice rather than a clear judicial ruling.¹² Korea is now the first jurisdiction where the answer comes from the top of the court system.

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Maeil Business Newspaper. Supreme Court Rules Golf Course Designs Are Copyrightable
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