On Parody Of Trademark

Parody was once ancient art gimmick, originally, ancient Greek city-state according tothe parody of epic and political events to express their views. Then this type work fell into theprotection of copyright and won the independent legal status. With the rapid development ofmodern economy and the global culture uninterrupted fusion, the traditional function ofmarking source of goods and services is having huge evolution in the effort of the trademarkholder and the public. Trademark is no longer a simple symbols, behind it representingenterprise culture， consumption concept and life style. This function changes bringstrademark strong expressive and become the target of parody. Not only in foreign country, ourcountry also appears the case of trademark parody. The current law has no regulation, so thelegal discussion of trademark parody is following. This paper discusses the relevant legalissues of trademark parody in order to provide some thought when constructing our trademarkparody system. This paper can be divided into five parts:Part Ⅰ：To discuss the concept and constitutive requirement of parody, the reasons andchanges of the parody when it developed from copyright domain to trademark domain,finallythis part puts forward the concepts and characteristics of trademark parody.Part Ⅱ: This part firstly analysis the trademark parody often is questioned by the dilutiontheory for its own feature. Secondly it introduces the basic meaning of dilution theory and thespecies of general dilution behavior, and comparing the characteristics for pointed out theiressential distinction between trademark parody and dilution behavior Finally this chapterintroduces the types of trademark parody through several typical case from USA, analysis thecharacteristic of every type of trademark parody in detail, and points out the rationality oftrademark parody. Lastly it summarizes the prerequisite elements of constituting fair use intrademark parody.Part Ⅲ：This part analysis essential reason that trademark parody deserve law to givereasonable protection from the social cultural attributes of the trademark, the constitutionprinciple of freedom speech, trademark fundamental values.Part Ⅳ：This part introduces the relevant system of trademark parody and compares totrademark dilution system and exceptions of the United States, the European Union, Japan. Part V：Combined with the reality condition of our country, the part analyzes relatedregulations of fair use system in the current trademark law, points out the necessity ofconstructing trademark parody institution and suggests the concept, constitutive element, tortcriteria to judge trademark parody. The last, this part considers we should be combinedChina’s specific conditions with the levels of protection of intellectual property rights toafford protection for trademark parody adapted to our national conditions.Along with the global commodity circulation and economic and cultural development,trademark will be given more cultural and symbol significance by society, how to protect andfairly use trademark at the same time are questions which countries’ trademark laws need toanswer. While only based on the national conditions, followed the requirements of thedevelopment of trademark, and perfected the relevant system, can make trademark service forthe development of society and economy.