Well-known Trademarks Degradation

Degradation means that the trademark owners, the competitors, the consumers all take the trademark as the generic names of this kind of goods. So trademarks and trade names coincide. Finally the trademark owners lose the trademark rights. In recent years, the theory of trademark degradation has developed mature in other countries. There are more and more experts and scholars began to research this subject in china. Significant is the most important qualification of the trademark. In the practice of market transactions, if the intentional or unintentional acts of the trademark owners, competitors and consumers cause the significant of the trademark gradually disappear, the mark will eventually evolve into the generic name of goods and will enter into the public domain. The trademark owner will lose his trademark rights, and the competitors will be free to use the logo. That is such a nightmare to the trademark owner. In the process of identifying the trademarks, we have many factors to be considered, such as the standard of trademark degradation, the consequences of trademark degradation and the legal remedies etc. In this paper, we use the method of case analysis, conceptual analysis, and the comparative research to study the subject of trademark degradation.Overall, the paper is divided into five parts. There are the concept and state of trademark degradation, the identification of trademark degradation, the consequences and the legal relief of the trademark degradation, the comparative study of trademarks degradation, and the construction of the system of the trademark degradation.The first part of the paper is the concept and state of the trademark degradation. First of all, there listed different definitions and concepts about the trademark degradation researched by the domestic and foreign scholars. Secondly, there discussed the improper acts and omissions of the trademark owners led to the occurrence of the degradation of the trademark. The inappropriate actives of the trademark owner main display in the following ways, the trademark owner choose the improper logos with the lower significant of the trademark, the trademark owner take the trademark as the generic name of the commodity, the product name is hard to remember and the owner fails to direct the name of the product. Trademark owners use the label of the trademark irregular. The improper actions of other people show that, the irregular behavior of the competitors, the misguided action of the government, as well as the other inappropriate behaviors of the dictionaries and the media.The second part of the paper is identification of the degradation of the well-known trademarks. It main introduces the standard of the public perception test and the public motivation test. The article also discusses the factors which the court should consider in the process of the identification of the trademark degradation, such as the availability of alternative terms of the trademark, the likelihood of confusion, the public opinion surveys, the secondary meaning of the mark, the advertisement and sales of the trademarks, the manner and length of the use of trademark.The third part of the paper is the consequences and legal remedies of the degradation of trademark. The degradation of well-known trademark may lead to many consequences, such as the revocation of registered trademark, limiting the scope of trademark protection, as well as non-renewal of a registered trademark etc. In order to prevent the occurrence of the adverse consequences, the right holder can take the dictionary amendment rights, disabled rights, claims damages and any other ways to remedy its own rights.The fourth part of the paper is the comparative research of the other counties of the system of the trademark degradation. In this part, we introduce the legal provisions of the trademark degradation of the United States, Britain, France and the European Union, so we can learn from them.The fifth part of the paper is about to establish the proper system of the degradation of well-known trademark. First of all, we expressed the current system of the trademark degradation in China, and point out its shortcomings. Combined with the excellent experience of other countries and the actual situation of our countries'judicial practice, we should establish the proper system of trademark degradation which will be in line with the condition of our country. The system will include the public perception survey, the fault principle, and clarify the legal consequences of degradation etc.