Analysis Of The Legal Problems Of The Parallel Importation Of Patented Products

Parallel importation of patented products is an extremely complex issues related to patent in the area of international trade, it not only related to a country’s protection of patent and the development of a country’s international trade, but also related to the personal interests of the patent owner and the public interests, which is also related to the relationship of the developing and developed countries. This complex relationship of interests making the parallel importation of patented products to one of the most controversial issues in the field of intellectual property.In theory, the exhaustion of rights theory, the theory of implied license, import rights theory are the main theories, which regulated parallel imports of patented products. In practice, how to regulate the parallel importation of patented products haven’t formed a unified practice in international community, different countries choose different basic theoretical principles, according to their own national conditions, to regulate the parallel importation of patented products. The level of the economy and technology in developed countries is more developed, in generally, the developed countries are big country in intellectual property, so the most of them prohibit the parallel importation of patented products. But the level of the economy and technology in developing countries is more backward, in generally, they need a lot of patented products, so most of them allow the parallel importation of patented products. With China’s accession to WTO, international trade, including trade in patented products, develops rapidly, parallel importation of patented products has become an prominent issues, in this background, our country started to allow the parallel importation of patented products by modifying our patent law, which adopts the principle of international exhaustion of rights, such policies meet the basic national conditions that the level of technology in our country is still underdeveloped. But this unlimited allows of the parallel imports of patented products, can also cause some negative impact on the economic development of our country, so it is necessary to make appropriate and reasonable restrictions. Therefore, under the premise of allowing the parallel importation of patented products, using the principle of implied license to regulate the parallel importation of patented products, is more in line with our national interests.This paper is divided into the following sections. Firstly, the overview of the parallel importation of patented product, analyses the concept classification, causes of parallel imports of patented products, researches the nature and legitimacy of parallel importation of patented products and discusses the conflict of interests it contains. Secondly, discusses the exhaustion of rights theory, the theory of implied license, import rights theory, which is used to regulate the parallel importations of patented product. Again, inspects and analyses the world’s major developed and developing countries’ legislation and judicial practice on the parallel importation of patented products, summarizes the reasons for the different countries to take the different legislative attitudes. Finally, analyses the legislation of parallel importation of patented products in our country, and the cause and the impact of the legislation, on the foundation of analyzing the shortage of the patent law, to make suggestions on improving China’s patent law.