Unregistered Well-known Trademark Protection System

Although the unregistered well-known trademark protection system of the international law has a long history, this system is still in its infancy in China. After China became a member of WTO, our country's existing legal system needs the protection system for registered trademarks to be adjusted according to international rules and docking. On the other hand, as Chinese economic developing, more and more domestic enterprises need legal weapons to protect the interests of their trademarks, so new demands on the trademark system of China are brought forward. Superposition of internal and external factors, coupled with the economic development of Chinese own market, have made new demands on the protection of unregistered well-known trademarks. Thus, there are many places worth exploring, and many issues worthy of studying.First of all, there are some ambiguities still exist in the judicial determination under our current protection system for unregistered well-known trademarks. And the definition of some rights are still lack of clarity.Secondly, if carefully studying the rights and obligations of the owner of unregistered well-known trademark, asymmetry will be found. This is contrary to the principle of unity of rights and obligations and the voluntary principle of trademark registration.Thirdly, on April 28,2009, the Supreme People's Court published "a judicial interpretation on cases involving well-known trademark protection of civil disputes application of Law". Article 9, paragraph 2 of this judicial interpretation introduced the trademark dilution system. But as the Article 13 of Trademark Law, which is the base of this Article, does not contain anti-dilution factor of trademarks, it seems to be improper to base the trademark dilution system on the Article 9 of the above judicial interpretation.