While both intangible cultural heritage and intellectual property derived from humankind’s intellectual efforts, the approaches for safeguarding or protecting intangible cultural heritage show much difference. Emphasizing the role of indigenous communities, groups, and individuals, the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage recognizes intangible cultural heritage helps to enrich cultural diversity and human creativity. However, it limits its application to the extent not affecting the rights and obligations of States Party deriving from any international agreement relating to intellectual property rights such as Paris Convention, Berne Convention and TRIPs. Meanwhile, WIPO also has tried to protect intangible cultural heritage through IGC. Though the legal frameworks of intellectual property are internationally standardized, the conflicts between developed countries and developing countries have persisted in defining traditional knowledge and traditional cultural heritage and deciding the methods giving legal effect on them.This article compares the subject matter from the perspective of both the intangible cultural heritage system and the intellectual property system. And it further reviews cases of intellectual property conflicts on traditional knowledge, traditional patterns, traditional dance, traditional tales, and trademark of the community’s name. The results show that the characteristics of intellectual property conflicting with intangible cultural heritage are much different from those of other kinds of legal disputes. This is partly due to the absence of a compelling international agreement on the protection of intangible cultural heritage.Recently both UNESCO and WIPO have been taking a more flexible attitude to solve these problems. UNESCO recommends application of intellectual property to safeguard intangible cultural heritage through its directives. WIPO also considers new approaches deviating from basic principles like non-formality rule for the protection of copyrighted works. This paper suggests that the related authority of Korea consider a more flexible approach such as introducing Formality rule or differentiating protection period to protect intangible cultural heritage effectively.