The Legal Protection Of Service Trademarks

As the development of the service industry, enterprises pay more and more attention tothe service trademark, the registration of the service trademark have greatly increased, at thesame time, cybersquatting and the counterfeiting of service trademark is also becoming morecommon. At present, service trademark is protected in many countries, China is no exception.The third paragraph of article4of the trademark law:" the provisions made in this Lawconcerning goods trademarks shall apply to service marks." However, there are somesubstantive differences between the service trademark and goods trademark, this regulationdose not reflect the particularity of the service trademark. The trademark law of servicetrademark is ambiguously, so service trademark protection has many problems, especiallyreflected the conflict between service trademark and goods trademark, service trademark andtrade name.This paper draws out some prominent problems about service trademark in our countryby analyzing some case, on the basis of analysis, propose some reasonable construction aboutour service trademark system. Addition to the introduction, this article is divided into fourparts.The introduction part analyzes the existing legal provisions and protection of servicetrademark, this part leads to two most outstanding conflict about service trademark byintroducing two typical cases, this paper sums up the root of the problem is that the provisionsof the trademark law killed the particularity of the service trademark.The first part analyzes the particularity of the service trademark. This part researches theunique attributes of the service trademark from three aspects: the use of the object, usemethod, suitable field. and points out that the object of service trademark is intangible, thetrademark is unable to paste in service, it shall be applicable to service industry.It analysis thekey position of service trademark, in order to lay the foundation for addressing problems ofservice trademark.The second part studies the conflict between the service trademark and goods trademarkfrom two aspects-the appearance and the cause of the conflict. It points out that the servicetrademark and goods trademark have a certain degree of similarity and overlap on thefunction, use and constitution. The provisions of the trademark law obscure the differencebetween service trademark and goods trademark, which lead to appear some ambiguity and the conflict. And it analyses the most common conflict representation of the service trademarkand goods trademark in reality.The third part also studies the conflict between the service trademark and trade namefrom two aspects-the appearance and the cause of the conflict. It points out that the servicetrademark and trade names have many similarities and overlap, and regulations of the relevantlaws are blurry, it leads to the conflict. And introduce some case analysis of the existing inreality will be prior registered trademark registration conflict phenomenon: registering other’sformerly registered trademark as corporation’s name, registering other’s formerly checked incorporation’s name as corporation’s trademark.The fourth part put forward some suggestion to perfect our country’s service trademark.In order to solve the most outstanding problem, this section focuses on coordinatingrelationship of trade names, goods trademark and service trademark. it can clear infringementstandard, outstand the unique attributes of service trademark,and then solve the conflict. Anddiscusses the insufficiency and the perfect of the administrative protection and the criminalprotection on service trademark.it should be strength the administrative protection, and putthe service trademark into the criminal protection, to provide comprehensive and reasonableprotection for it.The conclusion part summarizes the central idea of the article.