Legal Problems Of The Parallel Importation Of Trademarked Products

With the great development of knowledge economy, parallel import has called more and more attention of governments all over the world as it not only relates to the intellectual property rights, but also to the international trade. Parallel import is also called gray market. The parallel import in trademarks means that in the international trade,when some trademark rights or trademark right of use has already been in one country's legal protection, an importer buys a commodity of the same trademark outside from his country without the permission of the person who has the right of the trademark. In the international trade, the existence of commodity price difference and the economical profit actuation have inevitably caused the trademark product parallel import.The principle of territoriality and the principle of exhaustion of rights are the important parallel theories in the law of intellectual property right as well as the opposite basic theories about the question of parallel import. The principle of territoriality is to object to parallel import. The principle of exhaustion of rights is the support of the rationality of parallel import. The primary intention of exhaustion of rights is to reduce the negative effects produced by the exclusive rights of the intellectual property rights holders, so as to ultimately avoid excessive monopolization and to boost free commodity circulation. Different countries and regions have different views on whether it's legal or not because of the consideration of their own interests. Even in the conventions there are not unified standards about this question yet. Practice about the parallel legislation and administration of justice varies in various countries. And their attitudes and treatments to parallel imports change constantly with the development of each history.Along with the economical globalization development, increasing number of involved disputes and the lawsuits have appeared, so many countries such as U.S.,European Union and Japan all have managed to resolve the problem. Along with the consummation of our market economy system and entering WTO, the tariffs level and nor-tariff trade barrier are reduced step by step, thus the parallel import will also certainly increase. This causes us to pay more attention to the question and to deal with the parallel import. So this research is of vital importance not only for theory, but also for practice.This thesis introduces the basic theories of parallel import of trademark products and analyses them in detail. By force of the study on legislative and judicial practice of major countries and regions, suggestions are summed up on how to deal with the parallel import of trademark products which would be profitable for China. It consists of four chapters:Chapter 1 explains the meaning of parallel import of trademark products and its manifestation, characteristic and cause of formation,Chapter 2 analyzes the theory of parallel import of trademark products,and also analyzes the conflict of its theories,that is the conflict between the principle of territoriality and the principle of exhaustion of rights, the conflict between free trade and nor-tariff trade barrier and the conflict of the benefits between Intellectual Property holder and the public.Chapter 3 analyzes the parallel import of trademark products through the relevant cases and states the legislation and judicial practice of U.S., European Union and Japan regarding to parallel import of trademark products issue, which has a very important guide in our legislation and judicial practice.Chapter 4 puts forward some legislation recommendations on problems arising from the parallel import of trademark products in our country,based on the analysis in the previous three chapters.