Trademark And Trade Name Rights, Conflict And Its Solution

In recent years, cases concerning conflict between trademark and trade name have been increased day by day, which caused severe damage to the normal market order. Lack of scientific and harmonious legal regulation is the key reason for the phenomena. Both as the business symbols, trademark and trade name includes intangible assets which lure many profiteers to take advantages of the fame and reputation of the trademark or trade name in a legal way and thus cause unnecessary loss for right owners just because of the flaw in related regulations. Moreover, quite a number of entity with goodwill also infringe other entity's trademark or trade name rights only because of the conflict in related regulations regarding trademark law and trade name law.This article analyzes the feature of trademark and trade name and summarizes the reasons for the occurrence of the conflicts and its form as well as its conditions. This article also analyzes the flaw in related regulations to summarize the reasons for the trademark and trade name conflict. Lastly, the author suggests solving the problem through legislation and by observing key principals as well as using foreign laws for references.This article consists of three parts.The first part introduces the definition and features of trademark and trade name proposing that trade name is also a kind of intellectual property since it has both the identity rights and assets rights. This part also illustrates the relationship and differences between trademark rights and trade name rights, and summarizes the form of the two conflicts in the last section.The second part analyzes the deep reasons for the conflict between trademark and trade name in the respect of legalization and the position of trade name as well as the similarities between the two rights, so that to lay a foundation for the later discussion on solving the conflicts.The third part concerns the method on how to solve the conflicts between trade mark and trade name. The author suggests establishing a nationwide trade name law by arguing the value and function of trade name, the current inferior position of trade name in the legal frame, the flaw in the protection of trade name. Then the author...