On Legal Protection Of The Identification Functions Of The Appearance Of Commodity

The commodity appearance is one of the way marking the source of the commodity. With the development of society, the commodity appearance plays more and more important role in identifying the source of commodity. Although our country prescribes the provisions of the legal protection of the three-dimensional trademark and the particular package and decoration of the famous commodity in the Trademark Law and the Anti Unfair Competition Law of our country, However there are some defects of unclear definition, in accurate position, weak protection and so on. In recent years, the commodities’ appearance owners in China are facing problems that in lack of the protection system of the commodity’s appearance. The infringed appearance can’t get legal remedies. We need to systematically research the legal protection of the appearance of commodity in our country to improve the protection system and adjust the interests of the right holder.This paper is divided into four parts:The first part introduces the basic concept of commodity’s appearance and the necessity of its legal protection. Firstly, through the discussion of the basic concept to explore the evolution of the meaning of the commodity’s appearance in legal history and definite the protection scope of the commodity’s appearance. Then, the paper will briefly compare the appearance of commodity with appearance design patent, woks of applied art and trade dress. Thirdly, the paper analyses the necessity of the legal protection.The second part is on the Trademark Law protection. The TrademarkLaw protection contains two aspects: the trademark registration andpreventing the infringement of trademarks. First of all, the paper willdiscuss the conditions of application for trademark registration: such asthe non-functional condition and the significant condition. Secondly,because of the particularity of the appearance of the commodity trademark,the judgment of the trademark infringement should be clear, so the paperwill discuss the similar trademark judgment standards and the confusionstandards.The third part is on the Anti Unfair Competition Law protection ofthe appearance of the commodity. Now there are two kinds of protectionmodes: one is for the purpose of preventing confusion, such as theAnglo-American Legal System countries, the other is based on protectingthe business results, such as the European Union.Chinese Anti UnfairCompetition Law is also based on the purpose of preventing confusion. Sothe paper will discuss the protecting scope and the conditions of the AntiUnfair Competition Law.The fourth part points out the dilemma of legal protection of thecommodity’s appearance under the framework of protection in ourcountry. We will discuss the defects of the Trademark Law and the AntiUnfair Competition Law protection on the commodity’s appearance, andmake legislative recommendations regarding these defects.