The Theory Of Parallel Import Of Trademark

With the globalization of world economy and the rapid development of multinationalcompanies, more and more multinational companies start to establish their subsidiaries indifferent areas of the world. Meanwhile, products with their trademarks are brought to everycorner of the world with the expansion of those multinational companies. However, parallelimports are more and more mentioned and discussed in recent years. Parallel import oftrademark goods is not only an issue of international trade, but also an issue of intellectualproperty protection. Intellectual property has been more and more connected withinternational trade. Meanwhile, parallel import of trademark goods has become a significanttopic among the multi-parties of the world trade.Regarding whether or not to permit or prohibit the parallel import of trademark goodscontains a lot of un-intermediated contradictions and interests, which results in the fact thatthe issue of parallel import of trademark goods becomes largely concerned and discussed.Currently, there is not a consistent opinion on the disputes and interests of parallel import oftrademark goods on an international wise. Among the numerous international conventions,there is no uniformed regulation either. Even TRIPS gives no answer but leaves this problemto the member countries for their own regulations, from which it gives a sign that thereconsist large disputes on the parallel import of trademark goods.Nowadays, different countries and regions have different regulations on the parallelimports of trademark goods that reflect the key interests of such countries and regions onthe said topic. In the past century, with the free trade development, European Union and UShave started to make laws to regulate the parallel import, in which there were quite a fewfamous judicial practices. This article intends to conceive the establishment of parallel importrelated laws and regulations by elaborating the concept, features, cause of occurrence ofparallel import of trademark goods, discussing the principle of the issue and the legalpractice and development of other countries.This article elaborates the laws and regulations as well as the judicial practices ofparallel import of trademark goods in below three chapters.The first chapter is about the basic concept, feature and cause of occurrence of parallelimport of trademark goods. Circulation of goods in international trade is the key cause of parallel import. This chapter illustrates the concept and key points by elaborating thephenomenon and the interests behind within the international trade. In the meanwhile, thischapter elaborates the two legal principles of parallel imports of trademark goods, i.e. theterritory principle and the principle of exhaustion of rights. Different countries lean ondifferent principles due to their diversities on the focus of interests. Those counties thatadopt territory principle think that the trademark is only protected within a particular region bythe particular laws of the country; While other countries that adopt principles of exhaustionthink that once the trademark goods is sold out, rights on the trademark are exhausted andthe trademark owner shall have no rights to further interfere the disposure the trademarkgoods. Within the exhaustion of rights, it can be further divided into exhaustion of rights inthe nation, exhaustion of rights in the region and exhaustion of rights in international wide.The second chapter elaborates the legislation and judicial practices in the developedcountries and regions such as EU, US and Japan. The attitudes of these countries andregions on parallel import of trademark goods are changing and developing with theoccurrence of different cases as well as their internal needs of interests. Take EU as anexample. EU intends to protect the free development of the economy and trade within EU.Therefore, it is against the parallel import of trademark goods from outside the region.The third chapter is mainly about the recent cases on parallel imports of trademarkgoods in China, which reflect the attitude of China as well as the defects on the practices.Meanwhile, this chapter discusses the direction and possibility of establishing the laws andregulations in China regarding parallel import of trademark goods. In this article, theviewpoint is that, with China’s entry into WTO and the deeper trading with other countries allaround the world, China shall permits the parallel import of trademark goods conditionally. Itwill on one hand promote the international trade, but on the other hand promote thecompetition of domestics goods. However, the parallel import of trademark goods out of theconditions shall be prohibited in order to protect the basic interests and rights of thedomestic manufacturers and traders.This article starts with the basic analysis on parallel import of trademark goods and triesto discuss the possibility of China’s legislation on this topic by considering the legislation andjudicial practices of world’s developed countries and regions. US and other developedcountries started to have discussion on this issue as early as the beginning of the last century. And the essence of legislation and judicial practices of other countries of the worldis worth taking as goods references. China shall make the suitable laws and regulations onparallel import of trademark goods based on its own economic features and interests allaround.