A Study On The Determination Of Sound Mark Infringement

Current society has witnessed a burgeon of goods and services, which also leads to more fierce competition between companies. They spare no efforts to try on new brand strategy in order to attract consumers, thus expand their market share. As an important part of brand strategy, trademark has renewed itself all the time, which even transformed into sounds and scents from the original two-dimensional type. As The Singapore Treaty On The Law Of Trademarks was adopted, sound mark has been widely recognized through this international treaty. Many countries and regions, like the United States, the European Union and Taiwan, has confirmed the legal status of sound mark in their trademark law right before the treaty. In China's new amendment of trademark law, sound has been included as an object of trademark. However, China is still in its initial stage of sound mark protection, the present legal systems have no specific rules on the concerns of sound mark infringement. In this paper, I will discuss the basic definition and China's current law associated with sound mark, and give rational suggestions of the determination of sound mark infringement. This article includes the following three parts.The first chapter discusses the definition and features of sound mark, and illustrated that the traditional trademark protection rules can't satisfy the current needs. The second chapter summarizes the present rules that can be applied in the judgement of sound mark infringement in China. The third chapter proposes applicable solutions to improve the sound mark protection status in China, based on the current situation of legal system.