Research On Trademark Concurrent Use System

On the ground of the controversial trademark is not a confusing similarity, the supremepeople’s court sentenced against the plaintiff company, Scott (France), confirming the lawfulcoexistence of the Crocodile Trademark trademarks both of Crocodile International company(Singapore) and of Scott company in our country, and put an end to a ten-year-dispute ontrademark between the two companies in China. Meanwhile, it is the frist time that thejudicial practice in our country broke down the shackles of similar trademark infringementtheory, taking anti-similarity principle as one of the standards in the legitimacy judgment oftrademark coexistence. The case also provided a direct judicial template to the research ontrademark coexistence system.Because of the above reasons, taking the case of Scott incorporated company, vs CrocodileInternational Pte Ltd (Singapore) as an example, this paper attempts to give some flexibilityto both the research on the theory of and the judicial practice of trademark coexistencesystem.This paper can be divided into six parts.The first part contains the cause of action, the introduction of case, the focus of dispute.The author summarizes the focus of dispute. First, whether the two disputed trademarks cancoexist or not. Second, whether the agreements signed by the two companies in1983can be abasis for trademark coexistence or not. In the latter part of the paper, the author deeplyanalyzes the focus of dispute.The second part is a brief discussion on the definition and classification of trademarkcoexistence system. Trademark coexistence is divided into five types, including: a. caused bythe prior rights; b. caused by different commodity types; c. due to trademark registrationprocedures or caused by a failure of the competent authorities; d. due to the development ofthe market; e. caused by transferred trademark.The third part is the main body of the whole paper, focusing on the conditions and thejurisprudential basis of trademark coexistence. There are three conditions of trademark coexistence. The first one is that trademark coexistence is similar. The second one is that thetrademark coexistence has no possibility of confusion. The third one is the subjective of thelatter to use the trademark has good faith. The jurisprudential basis of trademark coexistenceis to protect the fair competition and to achieve social justice.The fourth part sets forth the legal form of trademark coexistence system. Legitimate formof trademark coexistence includes two types: the legal trademark coexistence and thepromissory trademark coexistence.In the fifth part, the provisions of trademark coexistence system in extraterritoriallegislation are given.The sixth part is an analysis of the trademark coexistence system both in legislation andadministration of justice, describing the meaning of the establishment of the trademarkcoexistence theory in our country, and some suggestions are given.