The Study On Infringement Determination Of Trademark Parody

Parody is a tool that writers, singers, satirists, and a host of others use to convey a message to an audience that simply could not be done any other way. Parody is a unique style of expression, even though it imitates or incorporates various features or characteristics of other works. With the development of society, anything with expressing function can be the target of parody, even with the exclusive right; the trademark cannot be an exception. The traditional function of a trademark is to identify the source of the product of service. However, owing to diversity of the global market, trademarks, especially famous trademarks, become to process much more meaning and strong ability of expression, with representing certain standard and tastes.However, parody always step on the boundary between infringing and legislative. For those parody leading the public mislead the parody product has some relationship with original product, the parodist may be imposed on the liability of infringement. For those parody weakening the association between original marks and corresponding products or service, the parodist will bear the liability for trademark dilution. Therefore, it is vital to give a guide to parodist on the limitation of lawful parody, which can balance the interests of public expression freedom, copyright owners and consumers.In chapter 1, the first part gives a statement on the conception and related theories of parody, and interprets the conception of trademark parody by its characters. The second part introduces the social culture and expressing properties of trademark, and gives an analysis on its rationality.In chapter 2, the author gives an introduction of the infringing judgment of trademark parody based on the confusion theory. With introducing the general principles of confusion theory, the author gives some specific principals for trademarks parody, namely the principles of no alternative avenue of communication, the principals of interest balancing, and the principles of Polariod. With the comparison and analysis, the author makes the conclusion of advantages and disadvantages of these principles.In chapter 3, the author gives an analysis on the dilution infringement of trademark parody. The dilution theory and confusion theory are in parallel condition. Behaviors not constituting infringement on confusion theory is possible to be regarded as infringement by dilution theory. With the same methods as confusion theory to analysis, the conclusion is made by the comparison of domestic and aboard legal practices.In the chapter 4, based on the above discussion, some suggestions for building a legal system for trademark parodies are given. After introducing the necessaries of that, the currents legal status of trademark parody is given, also companied with related defects. The improving suggestions are given in the order of former three paragraphs, and provide certain thoughts to our current trials.