Research On The Cognizance Of Trademark Reverse Confusion

Trademark reverse confusion is evolved from the U.S. judicial precedents. In our country from the "Blue Storm" case began to attract attention, then relevant cases emerge in endlessly. At present, the judicial practice in such cases is still not distinguish with the traditional trademark confusion. However, trademark reverse confusion is special, deal with reverse trademark confusion by the way of traditional confusion will undoubtedly lead to be questioned. The high appeals rate of reverse confusion case indicate the presence of troublesome. Therefore, under the background of new "Trademark Law " is about to implement, in order to guide trademark reverse confusion case out of the predicament of justice, to ensure a fair and impartial trial results, to achieve the purpose of the relevant laws, trademark reverse confusion considered vital research.In trademark reverse confusion case, the senior user have trademark ownership by registration, the junior user have carried on the investment to the senior’s registered trademark and established close ties to it. The junior trademark user make the trademark higher visibility, have no deliberation to use the goodwill of the senior trademark owner. Confusion is caused by the senior trademark owner himself in the use of trademarks.In short, the particularity of reverse confusion determine the particularity of the act finds a way.This paper research on the cognizance of trademark reverse confusion behavior by a five step process:First, make the infringement property of trademark reverse confusion explicitly. The second step, to explore the trademark reverse confusion legal basis, namely the victims sue on what law and the judges on the basis of what law constitute reverse confusion.The third step, the judicial officers how to determine constitutes a reverse confusion, in other words, analyse the reverse confusion infringement elements. The fourth step, the identification of tort liability. The fifth step is the tort liability defenses.Compared with the current existing settlement mechanism with reverse confusion related theoretical studies, the improvements are reflected in two aspects in this paper.Firstly, combined with the results of the third revision of the trademark law. Trademark Law applicable to solve the new related issues, including the cognizance of trademark reverse confusion litigation basis, the cognizance of reverse confusion possibility, reasonable use of the right of defense, help the cognizance of tort liability, and on the basis of the trademark license fee multiples of calculation of compensation, etc. Secondly, we propose the idea of applying a reverse confusion trademark statute of limitation, and analyze their rationality. These improvements provide a new way to make a fair and reasonable outcome of the trial of cases, meet the requirements of justice and economic efficiency. And also point out the direction worth exploring to improve the relevant laws.