Legal Research On Parallel Imports In Trademark

Importing tariff reduced a lot after Chinese entrance to WTO. As a result, the number of the cases that refer to the trademark parallel imports are growing quickly. However, there's no law regulates the trademark parallel imports in China. The Chinese courts made adversary judgments for the similar cases. So it's necessary to make the legislation for the trademark parallel imports.The dispute of trade mark parallel imports arises from the theory of International exhaustion rules and National exhaustion rules .The thesis conclude that the nationality is still the nature of trade mark rights ,and the exhaustion rules do not deny the nationality nature.With reference to the international laws, they all regulate the nationality nature of trademark rights directly. Further to the problem of trademark parallel imports, international laws approve for the forbidden of trademark parallel imports directly or indirectly.The legislation and practice of EU and US in trademark parallel imports can be used for our legislation. It is considered that EU adopted the theory of regional exhaustion. By the study of the cases related to trademark parallel imports, the thesis advocate that the legislation and practice of EU do not deny the nationality nature, and the adoption of regional exhaustion theory results from the free mark principle. Further to US, the legislation is changing as the development of the economics. US forbade any trademark parallel imports in order to protect the US retailers and distributors. However, as the intellectual property sharply development, they regulate some exception for the forbidden of trademark parallel imports.By analysis of the Chinese situation and the balance of different interests, it will conclude that China should generally prevent the trademark parallel imports, but it can regulate some exceptions.