On Legal Protection Of Trade Dress

Trade dress means the total image of commodity and service ,including packaging,upholster,size,figure,combination of colors,texture and so on. Trade dress is the whole impression of commodity and service,not considered solely,possessing the character of integration.And that,trade dress is protected as a specific object which is not included in patent,copyright,trademark and anti-competition law,so it also has the character of independence.Countries in the world currently take measures to protect trade dress through specific laws such as copyright law,patent law.Anglo-amercian law system is inclined to protect trade dress as a commercial identifier standarded by market confusion. Civil law system is inclined to consider trade dress as a special commercial production ,establishing systems such as slavish imitation to forbid anti-unfair-competition action.Now,in our domestic legal system,special law about trade dress has not considered as a specific object,so the owners just can choose relevant law such as copyrigut law,patent law,trademark law and anti-unfair-competition law according to their trade dress's different chanacter to obtain protection.But all of the four special law have their shortages in protecting trade dress .So at present,some proposals could be put forward:ulteriorly widening the area of anti-unfair-competition act law;cancelling the fifth item of anti-unfair-competition act law on"well-known";establishing appropriate standard of legal protection on trade dress.Domestic system info about legal protection of trade dress should be conformed and expanded,and relavant legislation also should be perfected ulteriorly.