Study On System Of Legal Protection Of Trade Dress

The trade dress is total image of a product and may include features such as size, shape, colour, or colour combinations, texture, graphics, or even particular sales techniques. China's law does not provide special protection for trade dress, but rather through existing intellectual property laws, such as the Trademark Law, Patent Law, Copyright Law and Unfair Competition Law, provides the limited protection. The scope of this protection is very narrow, and the related terms are too simple to be applied. And, on the one hand, a object of trade dress may be protected by many laws; on the other hand, it may not be protected by any law. Different standards and purposes of protection have led to exist the phenomenon of duplication and gaps on trade dress protection. The imperfect in legislation on trade dress protection cause many difficulties in judicial practice. It is not conducive to encourage manufacturers, and protect consumer's interests. Therefore, we should make a systematic study on trade dress legal system.Comparative analysis method is used in this thesis, combining with Europe and the United States, Japan, Brazil and China's trade dress legislation and judicial practice, this thesis explores the basic theory of trade dress, and the construction of the legal protection system. This thesis consists of three chapters plus a preface and a conclusion.ChapterⅠ. The overview of trade dress. In this chapter, trade dress will be placed in a certain language environment, and compared with traditional object of intellectual property and other similar concepts, for getting accurate understanding of the concept of trade dress. At the same time, this chapter define that trade dress is the new object of intellectual property, and the right of trade dress is a new right of intellectual property.ChapterⅡ. The models and conditions of legal protection of trade dress. First, it introduces the present two main models, according to trademark law and anti-unfair competition law, and then combined with national legislation and judicial practice, focusing on the conditions, which include distinctiveness, unfunctionality, the standard of determining infringement and registration procedure under the two models.ChapterⅢ. Construction of the system of legal protection for trade dress. Based on the analysis of the conservation status of China's law, and combined with the experience of other countries, this chapter point out that trademark law should be used to protect trade dress. It also point out the specific conditions of the legal protection of trade dress.