A Semiotic Linguistic Analysis Of Trademark Dilution Disputes In China

The present thesis addresses trademark dilution by comprehensively and systematicallyanalyzing dilution in disputed trademarks by means of linguistic toolkit and the semioticapproach. Dilution refers to significant weakening and even complete loss of strength ofmark of well-known marks. Regardless of jurisprudence and economics, dilution theory canbe well justified. The criteria for judging dilution is always difficult, to which semioticlinguistic analysis can be applied, because it enables an analyst to assess a disputedtrademark at the levels of pronunciation, morphology, typeface, meaning and overall design,so as to provide professional advice on judging dilution, or simply determining similarity ofdisputed marks for judges’ reference.This thesis is basically a descriptive, qualitative analysis and the approach of semioticlinguistic analysis as proposed by Butters (2011) is employed to analyze trademark dilutionin China. On top of a careful review of previous literature on trademark dilution and are-conceptualization and classification of the phenomenon of trademark dilution in China, itis found that different linguistic methods are required in analyzing different types oftrademarks (i.e. figure mark, word mark, and composed mark); therefore, it is decided thatthe traditional single-level linguistic analysis does not apply in the analysis of trademarkdilution because the semiotic aspect of trademark dilution cases cannot afford to beneglected. Accordingly, a new analytical framework is proposed by combining the variouslevels of linguistic analysis, semiotic analysis and legal categorization. This framework isfollowed in the whole process of analysis on a case by case basis and is proved to besufficiently applicable to the analysis of trademark dilution cases in China.This thesis conducts a classification analysis of sample cases by virtue of a legaldatabase, and verifies the scientificness and practicability of semiotic linguistic approach.Lack of linguistic studies on trademarks and trademark dilution necessitates this thesis.Hopefully, this thesis, as a new attempt, could contribute the interdisciplinary cooperation as well as further development between linguistics and law regarding trademarks.