Comparison On The Revocation System Of Non-used Registered Trademark

The revocation system of non-used registered trademark is an important system in the trademark law. It has significant meaning to supervise and urge the people to use trademarks, protect limited trademark resources, and give commercial activities to participate into equal competition. Therefore, in the trademark law of many countries, the revocation system of non-used registered trademark is generally used as a terminate system of trademark exclusive right. Although, in 2013, our country revised the "trademark law", and the revocation system of non-used registered trademark was amended, but due to China’s current legislative experience is still shallow, there are many inadequacies in the legislation, the substantive issues of legal practice still of in legislative gaps. This also led to the administrative organizations and the judicial organizations have many differences in the law application, the academic community also have different opinions about the relevant substantive issues. This situation severely weaken the authority of the law, and restrain the value of the revocation system of non-used registered trademark.This paper discusses the important issues of the revocation system of non-used registered trademark, and combined with the experience of the instances of legislation and cases in foreign countries and other regions. In this paper, the following five chapters will be discussed:In the first chapter, the paper will introduce the revocation system of registered trademark. The development of the system in our country will be briefly introduced. And its difference with the invalid system of registered trademark, and leads to the revocation system of non-used registered trademark, which is the research object of this paper. Then, this paper will talk about the consequence of applying the revocation system of registered trademark, and expounds three-levels of the practical significance of the revocation system of non-used registered trademark, and combined with the classic case "GNC" trademark revocation case, leads to the defeats of the revocation system of non-used registered trademark in China from the Angle of administrative and judicial practice, as well as some thoughts in this system.In the second chapter, the paper will discusses the most important question of the revocation system of registered trademark — the “use”. Includes the usage intention of the trademark owner, whether the trademark is used figuratively, or whether is used cannot represent the subjective will of the right holder. Give the definition of “Genuine use” and “Figurative use” by the “Ansul” case of European Court, U.S. Lanham Act and Procter & Gamble co. v. Johnson & Johnson, Inc. of American Federal Circuit Court. This paper will also discuss whether the trademark is used publicly, whether is used illegally, whether is used without altered significances, whether is used in the designated commodities, whether is used in components and other issues. Combine with the instances of legislation and cases of German, Japan, and Chinese Taiwan region, analysis the above issues.In the third chapter, the paper will discuss other issues besides “use”, including the three consecutive years, the “Emergency Use” of the right holder, the retroactive effect of trademark revocation decisions, the burden of proof of non-used and the effectiveness of evidences, trademark revocation procedures, and the composition of "justifications", combine with the instances of legislation and cases of EC, U.S., German, Japan, Chinese Hong Kong and Chinese Taiwan region, finding the problems in our revocation system of non-used registered trademark, which need to be perfected.In the fourth chapter, based on the issues discussed above, combined with the analysis of the instances of legislation and cases, the paper will summarize the legislative experiences and practice experiences of foreign countries and other regions, on the provisions, the definition of “use” and other related problems of the revocation system of non-used registered trademark, hope them can be used to improve our revocation system of non-used registered trademark. This chapter will give some perfecting suggestions, which includes setting explicit requirements of “genuine use” to rule out the “Figurative use” and the unauthorized use; and clarify the use of trademark without changing the significances should be considered as “maintaining use” of the trademark owner; add the eliminating rules of “Emergency Use” of the right holder; improving the provisions of revocation procedures, burden of proof, and the effectiveness of evidences, so as to protect the procedural justice and administrative efficiency; setting up proof of use registration system for trademark owners, in order to promote the genuine use of trademarks, and to clean up idle trademarks in time.