Study On Legal Protection Of Added Goodwill

To the enterprises, Goodwill is the significant intangible assets. It plays an important role in market competition and has great effect on the existing and development of an enterprise. Law of China Against Unfair Competition regulate the illegal act of infringing the goodwill of a company, which fully proves that the goodwill is one of the protected interest in law. Under the condition of trademark licensing, ‘Add goodwill’ means that a normal trademark becomes famous because of the use of the licensee other than the owner of the trademark. That is to say, the newly built reputation is almost made by the licensee. At present, due to the imperfections of trademark license law, there is an enormous gap in the protection of ‘added goodwill’, thus resulting in more and more controversy between license and licensee. As the completion of China’s economic transition, the cases of trademark licensing will be flourishing in the near future. So it’s necessary for us to improve the relevant laws and regulations for protecting the ‘added goodwill’ and create a great legal environment for our enterprises. This thesis based on the perspective of the balance of interests and analyzed on the basis of a case of ‘Wang Lao Ji’ trademark dispute, which has given a detailed account of the ownership and distribution of the added goodwill. This thesis is into four parts altogether besides the foreword and the conclusion. The structure of the article as follows:The first part focused on definition of ‘added goodwill’ and its relationship with goodwill and trademark. In this part, I discussed that the reason of ‘added goodwill’ is the trademark license contract. ‘Add goodwill’ means that a normal trademark becomes famous because of the use of the licensee other than the owner of the trademark. It’s a special form of goodwill. At the same time, by the way of put forward the assessment of intangible assets, this paper has proved the independence of ‘added goodwill’.The second part mainly discusses on the structure of interests of ‘added goodwill’. Firstly, I explained the uncertainty in interests of ‘added goodwill’. Basing on the theory of the balance of interests, this part indicates the necessity to maintain the balance between different subjects. Meanwhile, the benefit of consumers is the other fundamental factor.The third part analyzed the advantages and the shortcomings of relevant theory which are designed to solve the problem of ‘added goodwill’s’ ownership and distribution. Several theories are concluded in this chapter, including the conception of accessio, unjustified enrichment system, under unified use mode and the right of priority.The last part is the foothold of the article. On the basis of above analysis the theory and practice, this chapter aims at setting forth new method to balance the interests conflict between the trademark license and licensee. As we know, the ‘added goodwill’ has the logic premise that it is stemmed from the license contract. So the combination of autonomy and obligation is the best solution to distribute the ‘added goodwill’ between license and licensee. On the one hand, we should fully respect the will of contract parties. On the other hand, ‘buffer rules’ must be made to realize the justice. Moreover, granting renewal rights to licensee under certain conditions is the other effective method to solve this problem. Based on these demonstrations, the article has simple system design for the ‘added goodwill’ distribution. Lastly, this thesis has analyzed the distribution of ‘added goodwill ’in the case of ‘Wang Lao Ji’.