On Parallel Import

Parallel import is still a controversial issue. As a foreign-trade-oriented country, China, with the economic development and entry into WTO, shall not ignore this problem any longer as it did before. The research and analysis in this article is not confined to the area of intellectual property law. Rather, the economic impact and competition law are also involved in the research. The author herein, by means of deduction and comparison, makes exploration of the nature of parallel import and gives suggestions on the legislation of parallel import.In the first chapter "summary of parallel import", the author gives introduction of definition, features and classification of parallel import and based thereupon points out that the price difference of the same kind of commodities is the essential cause of parallel import.In the second chapter "causes of parallel import and different opinions-factual aspects and conflict of theories", the author analyses possible causes of parallel import, including price strategy of IP owners, cost difference in producing the same kind of commodities, importation of second-handed goods, fluctuation of foreign exchange rate, etc. The author, at the same time, argues that the twotheories related to parallel import-IP international exhaustion doctrine and regional exhaustiondoctrine-are not in conflict. IP owners enjoy separate and independent IP rights in every countrythey apply for IP protection. Which doctrine one country applies shows the different opinions among countries. That is, whether IP owners are entitled to the IP law protection of import country when their IP rights in export country have been exhausted.In the third chapter "advantages and disadvantages of parallel import-analysis in economic impact", the author holds the opinion that each country shall and will put economic impact rather than the pure IP theories in the first place when deciding the parallel import issue.The competition law shall be considered as well when dealing with the parallel import issue. In the forth chapter "relation between parallel import and fair competition", the author begins with anti-competition theory and analyzes all possibilities of constitution of unfair competition incurred by parallel import. Then, the author tries to analyze the possibility of abuse of monopolization advantage if claiming for prohibition of parallel import by IP owners.In the final chapter "measures related to parallel import", the author gives suggestions in IP owners interests and to China's legislation respectively. IP owners are able to prevent parallel import by means of contracts. As to China's legislation, the author concludes that China shall allow parallel import of patent goods and trademark goods in principle. But some restrictive requirements and conditions shall also be met before goods are allowed to be parallel imported into China. Parallel import of copyright goods shall be prohibited with some statutory exceptions specified.