Article 36 of the Design Protection Act provides for the exception to lack of novelty. This system allows a person who can receive design registration such as a creator to receive design registration based on that the applied design has novelty or creativity regardless of the publicly known design. And the Korean Intellectual Property Office has been striving to contribute to securing creators’ design rights by expanding the timing for claiming the exception to lack of novelty in the system. By the way, the exception to lack of novelty in the Design Protection Act needs to be operated to protect creators further. To this end, it is necessary to review the fundamental interpretation of the exception to lack of novelty and then clarify the effect of the design right that the exception to lack of novelty is recognized through the application of faithful interpretation. For example, in the case where the exception to lack of novelty is recognized for the publicly known design of the creator and the design authority, the exclusive status of the design should be recognized based on the fundamental interpretation theory, so that third parties' defense of freely practiced design should not be allowed. The exception to lack of novelty should be operated for protection of creator such as a designer. However, reasonable interpretation will be needed so that it can be operated to the extent that it does not harm the rights and interests of third parties. In this regard, I think this system can balance between the protection of creators and the protection of interests of third parties according to the method of utilizing the non-exclusive licenses by prior use. In the end, based on the fundamental concept of the exception to lack of novelty, research on the theoretical basis, etc. should be continued so that this system can actually contribute to the development of design creation in Korea.