Trade Dress Protection Of The Law

Trade dress refers to a total image and overall appearance of products or service. Special trade dress of products or service is able to indicate the source of products or service likewise a trademark. Once trade dress is imitated by others, consumers will likely to be confused, so that protection for consumers'right of choice will be void. Theoretically, trade dress works as a parallel object as trademark, which falls into the category of wide-defined trade mark. However, due to the extensive meaning of trade dress, registration is difficult to achieve. Furthermore, legal protection for trade dress overlaps copyright or patent, which ruins the purpose of protection for trade dress. There is a long history of trade dress protection in Western countries, especially in US as well as in WIPO and WTO. Even though, Trademark law and Anti-Unfair Competition Law of China, only in some degree, refer to the content of trade dress. However, general protection consciousness for trade dress remains on a weak level. Upon that, Chinese enterprises are accused as defendants during export issues. Trade dress infringement became a new major barrier to filter Chinese goods. 5-year transit period for China in WTO will mature at the end of 2006. How to harmonize Chinese law with international standards by absorbing experience of other countries in trade dress protection fields, as well as avoiding lawsuits due to weak protection level, seems rather pressing. Meanwhile, trade dress protection plays a dominate role in the processing of internationalization of Chinese enterprises.As foregoing, basing on US, European and international organization rules and cases, as well as current situation in China, this dissertation would probe into relevant issues of trade dress protection. It is constituted by two parts. Text structure lay as follows:Part I: Summarization of trade dress intension and extension. Presenting trade dress definition, contents and characteristic through comparison between trademark and trade dress.Part II: Necessity of trade dress protection. This part will clear the suspicion of necessity of trade dress protection from Chinese enterprises by narrating trade dress function and economical analysis.Part III: Summarization of trade dress protection in foreign countries. Foreign experience seems extraordinary meaningful while relevant legal fields remain blank in China.Part IV: Analysis of current situation and shortage of trade dress protection in China. This is the key part of the dissertation. Detail description of trade dress protection under Copyright law, Patent law, Trademark law and Anti-Unfair Competition law of China shows advantage and restriction of trade dress protection by multiple laws, which works as a foundation for solution in coming part.Part V: Analysis on the causation of weak protection on trade dress in China. According to the causation, suggestions on amendment of current laws are brought forward in this core part.Part VI: Conclusion of the dissertation.