Study Of Parallel Imports Legal Issues Of Intellectual Property Rights

Nowadays, intellectual property has become the important legal system of all the countries to guarantee the progress of technology and the increase of economy. Along with the development of the economic integration and the increase of international company, there are more and more intellectual property problems involved in international trade. Parallel import has become the focus of all the countries. But views in different countries vary, and the conversations concerned intellectual property avoid this issue. This article analyzes the related theory and practice of some countries and initially evaluates the parallel import problem from the angle of law and economy. Then the author points out that the economic profit hidden in parallel import is the foundation of its existence and the important reason of different attitudes of the countries. After introducing the experience of some countries, the author raises some constructive proposals according to the reality of China and hope that will do good to the legislation of parallel import in our country.This article proceeds from a typical case in the preface and leads to the main problem of this article. The main content of the article is divided into four sections except preface and afterwards.The first part mainly describes the fundamental problems of parallel import. Firstly, the author discusses the definition and the character of parallel import, and then classifies the parallel import according to the needs of this article. At last, the author analyzes the reason of parallel import's appearance and points out that the economic profit is the crucial factors .The arrangement of intellectual property system as well as the uncompleted forbidden attitude of different countries is the legal reasons of parallel import. Besides, the rapid progress of technology especially the development of the world information system objectively eniiances the frequently occurrence of parallel import.The second section of the article analyzes the theories of parallel import. This part analyzes from the angles of economy and law. From the economic angle, parallel import is related to monopoly, free competition as well as trade barrier and trade liberalism. The parallel import mainly involved intellectual property owners, local monopolized licensee (or authorized sales man), parallel importers and local consumers, which is different to be influenced by parallel import. How to deal withthese relations and which person's benefit should be prevented? These are the theoretical foundation of permitting parallel import or not. From the aspect of law, International Exhaustion is the basis of supporting parallel import, and the Regional Theory can't prove the illegality of parallel import. From the long run, permitting parallel import will benefit the whole society.The third section of the Article analyzes the experience of parallel import. The author puts great emphasis to introduce the international conventions as well as legislated and judicial practice in some countries. But there are not any clear rules in the conversations concerning this problem and views in different countries vary, even the regulations in different field of intellectual property in one country is different too. So the author points out that these different is decided by the intellectual property and trade position of one country.The fourth part is concerning the current provisions of our country and some suggestions of legislation, which is also a highlight of innovation of this article. From the legislated aspect, there are not any specific regulations about parallel import. Only in the law of patent, there are regulations of "the right of import", but after analyzing, the author thinks that "the right of import" can't be used as the basis of forbidding parallel import. In the same time, the author analyzes the economic status of our country and the parallel import 'possible influences to China. After the analysis, the author thinks that China should draw lessons from developed countries, but shouldn't foll...