It was confirmed that Nongshim filed a trademark for the name of the special recipe that BTS’s Jungkook introduced in a recent Weverse post.
On March 16, Jungkook revealed a special recipe on Weverse and called it a “Bulguri” or “Bulgeuri,” which is the Buldak Spicy Chicken noodle with Neoguri Ramyun mixed together.
According to reports on March 20, Nongshim headquarters registered both names – “Bulguri” and “Bulgeuri” – as trademarks to the Korean Intellectual Property Office on the same day the Weverse post was created.
On that day, Jungkook wrote, “Add 650 ml to 680 ml of water in a frying pan rather than a regular pot. Turn on the heat, and before the water boils, add one whole liquid Buldak sauce and half of the Neoguri powder soup sauce. Add the dried vegetables too. When the water starts boiling, add the noodles. Keep eye on the noodles and cook until the water evaporates a bit. If it’s too salty, add more water. And lastly, add the Buldak garnish at the end and some whole sesame seeds. If you have perilla oil, add that too.” Jungkook explained this recipe for the noodles and wanted to share it with ARMYs so that they can also try it.
An official from Nongshim explained, “We applied for the purpose of protecting the trademark of Neoguri to prevent indiscriminate commercial use since it became a hot topic after BTS’s Jungkook introduced it himself.” The company explained that it was a protective measure that the company routinely takes.
However, some criticize Nongshim’s moves to trademark “Bulguri/Bulgeuri” in the Ramyun industry. It is unlikely that “Bulguri/Bulgeuri” would be made into an actual product since it requires two counterparts that belong to different companies – Buldak noodles from Samyang Food and Neoguri from Nongshim.
One official from the distribution industry even argued, “Shouldn’t the BTS member be the one who should have the trademark ownership since he is the first to introduce the recipe if a trademark would be registered?”
The Nongshim official explained that the company has no plans of launching a “Bulguri” product. The official explained, “There were cases in the past where there were ‘ Bulpagetti’ and ‘Bulramyun’ that were created but actual products were not created after they were trademarked. Last year, only 2 items were created into actual products out of the 29 that were trademarked. The application for the trademark of ‘Bulguri’ is to prevent foreign competitors from taking commercial profits by launching products by combining the prefix ‘Bul’, which means spicy, with the naming of Neoguri products.”
Most Korean netizens agreed with Nongshim’s actions of trademarking ‘Bulguri’ and ‘Bulgeuri.’ They commented, “I understand if they did to protect the names,” “Nongshim was just fast at doing their work,” “Jungkook is so cute,” “I wonder if Nongshim would give Samyang a guarantee or something. lol,” “I think it’s smart that they trademark it as a protective measure if they can’t release the product anyway,” and “I want to try this noodle at home too.”
