Research On Legal Effect Of Trademark Coexistence Agreements

Trademarks are used to identify sources of goods or services,they embody a lot of manpower and material resources of trademark owners and gradually become one of the most important intangible property of enterprises.In the past,due to various limiting factors,the same or similar trademarks coexist in the same or similar goods or services is not easy to cause disputes,but with the economic development and the reduction of limiting factors,the phenomenon that the same or similar trademarks used in the same or similar goods or services has brought more and more trademark disputes.Actually,the use of identical or similar trademarks on the same or similar commodities’ market is not necessarily confusing customers,because if consumers are able to identify sources of goods or services,there is no problem of harming the public interest.Today,for the elimination of trademark registration barriers,to avoid trademark disputes or other reasons,more and more merchants signed "trademark coexistence agreements".However,for the current situation of theoretical research and practice of trademark coexistence system in China,many problems still need to be further explored.Therefore,this paper takes the trademark coexistence agreement,especially the validity and legal effect,as the starting point to analyze,and hoping to help the development of China’s trademark coexistence system.Essentially,as a contract,a trademark coexistence agreement should meet the general requirements of the contract,and should be controlled by the trademark law.Therefore,trademark coexistence agreements not only involve private rights of parties,but also must relate to the public interest.So,this paper starts from the requirements of validity of the trademark coexistence agreements,and gets a conclusion that the coexistence agreement is invalid if the use or registration of the trademarks causes confusion easily or harms public interest seriously.Further,this paper summarizes several special influence factors of validity of coexistence agreements.When the trademarks involved in the coexistence agreements encounter the registration barrier or cause the litigation,the legal effect of the trademark coexistence agreements also brought many arguments.So,this paper also analyzes the legal effect of the coexistence agreements.China adopt the trademark registration system,therefore,applicants usually should obtain the exclusive right to use a trademark through the application procedure of trademark registration.First,in the course of registration,if the trademark is the same as or similar to the cited mark and it is used on the same or similar goods or services,the application may likely be refused for the public interest,but if applicants can submit a coexistence agreement,this agreement should have evidence effect and helps the applicant to remove the registration barrier,but not necessarily.Since the possibility of confusion is a presumption,if there is other evidence to prove the possibility of confusion,the trademark registration should not be approved.Second,in the coexistence agreement,usually,the usage scope and mode of trademarks are clearly agreed.If one of the parties violates the agreement,based on the binding force on the parties of the contract,the defaulting party shall bear the liability for breach of contract.However,there may be the possibility of the concurrence of civil liabilities.In trademark infringement suits,according to different circumstances,trademark coexistence agreements also have different defense effect.