A Research On Identification Of The Crime Of Counterfeiting Registered Trademark

Based on the spirit of the Criminal Law Act.1997, the offender violates the national trademark regulation by using the same registered trademark or similar trademark without the authorization of licensees. The offender shall be convicted of crime of counterfeiting registered trademark due to the serious circumstances caused by behaviour. Regarding the crime of counterfeiting registered trademark, the regulation included in the Criminal Law, along with related judicial interpretations of both the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate and other regulations, contributes to a relevant complete legal system to protect the right of registered trademark and defend from the crime of counterfeiting registered trademark.Nevertheless, due to the diversity of modern society, there are continuing changes in methods of trademark infringement. Currently, how to define the crime is critical for the judicial institutions to fight against the crime, maintain the socialist market economy and protect the legal rights of the owner of registered trademark and consumers as well. Rational interpretation of the objective condition of committing the crime of counterfeiting registered trademark, together with distinguishing the above crime from other similar types of crime accurately, is the core issue to figure out how to define the crime of counterfeiting registered trademark, which is also the purpose of this paper.There are three parts in this paper. The first part briefly introduces the development of legal system of trademark in China and analyze the constitutive conditions of the crime of counterfeiting registered trademark. Objective conditions of the crime are illustrated in the second part, including the understanding of term of "without authorization of the licensee", how to define the identical or similar product, the understanding of the word "use", and the justification of "same trademark" and the illustration of "serious circumstances". In the last past, comparison between the crime and other crime and the application will be discussed in two aspects. The first aspect is about the comparison between the crime and other crime related to trademark. The other part is about the difference between the crime of counterfeiting registered trademark and the crime of production and sales inferior products, and the distinction and coopetition between the above two types of crime.