Research On The Across-categories Protection Of Well-known Trademarks

Across-categories protection of well-known trademarks is a special protection, whichstrengthens the protection of the benefits of the well-known owner. With the continuingdevelopment of economy, the well-known trademarks have more and more influence onconsumers, as the economic value of well-known trademark is fully manifested. So theparticular protection to the well-known trademarks has been increasing important. Both the"trademark law" and "Interpretation of the application of the law a number of issues on thetrial of civil disputes involving the protection of well-known trademarks" promulgated by TheSupreme People’s Court provide the across-categories protection of well-known trademarks,while, those limited provisions are insufficient to solve many of the problems in the judicialpractice. In this sense, it is necessary to a deeper analysis about across-categories protectionfor well-known trademarks."Xinghuacun" trademark objection review case as the breakthrough point, this articlediscusses that the across-categories protection of well-known trademarks should be limitedand how to limit. And then leads to the exploration of reference factors as well as thetheoretical basis of the across-categories protection of well-known trademarks. In addition tothe introduction of the main contents of this article also includes four parts:The first part is the introduction of the basic facts of the "Xinghuacun" trademarkobjection review case. This part analyzes the Trademark Trial Committee, the Beijing FirstIntermediate People’s Court and the Beijing Municipal Higher People’s Court’s points of viewon the case, and propose three controversial focuses of the case to be discussed:(a) is theoriginality of the trademark influential to the across-categories protection for well-knowntrademarks;(b) the application for the registration of non-similar goods objection trademarkwould mislead the public, leading to cite the trademark owner’s rights may be impaired;(c)whether there are limits and how to restrict the across-categories protection for well-knowntrademarks.In the second part, it explores the origins of the term of the well-known trademarks, andthen describes the method and standard of identifying the well-known trademark; then, itcombs legal provisions for across-categories protection of well-known trademarks, andconcludes that China has established trademark dilution theory as the basis ofacross-categories protection of well-known trademarks. And demonstrates that China has a full rationality for the across-categories of well-known trademarks; Finally, scholars havedifferent perspectives for the restrictions on across-categories protection of well-knowntrademarks: Some advocate protection of the "high standards, across the full category"; Someadvocate that only the trademarks which are known by the majority of the general public canget across-categories protection. By comparing and analyzing the point of views of scholars,and comparing China’s ordinance, It can be seen that the across-categories protection fortrademarks need to have an appropriate limitation.In the third part, it introduces factors needed to consider about the across-categoriesprotection for well-known trademarks, analyzing the significance of trademark, public’sawareness, the relevance of goods and originality of the trademark which will influence itsprotection. The analysis of the original is the focus of this part. There has a Contradiction inthe judgment of the court of second instance: on the one hand, the court think that originalitydoes not cause too much impact on the across-categories protection of well-known trademarks,But, on the other hand, they said that Xinghuacun trademark is not first used by the originalowner of the trademark. Therefore, this trademark has the characteristics of public resource.Although the relevant laws of China are not stipulate originality as a reference factorwell-known trademark protection, but it will affect the scope of the across-categoriesprotection of well-known trademarks to some extent.The fourth part mainly introduces the current situations of across-categories protectionfor well-known trademarks, teasing out the problems needed to solve urgently, proposingsolutions for the specific problems.