Analysis And Reflection On Legal Problems Of Trademark Coexistence

The system of trademark coexistence is mainly set up to make up for the inadequacy of the "approximation or confusion" infringement standard and to resolve coexistence caused by historical reasons.In China,the courts mainly rely on the policy called "stable market structure" and tend to use a rule which including the "goodwill,fairness,and current market structure" to handle the disputes of trademark coexistence,based on the consideration of fairness and balance of interests.While the attitude toward coexistence agreements is also becoming positive.The standard of trademark infringement has changed into a likelihood of confusion in the Trademark Law which has revised in 2013.Since then,the traditional way of solving the coexistence disputes has been not applied to China's actual judicial practice.The confusion caused by abusing coexistence of trademark will have negative impacts on the interests of the relevant consumers.This article focuses on the domestic judicial practice.By analyzing several types of evidence that coexist in judgments in specific cases,the factors that currently affect China's trademark coexistence referee are summarized.At the last part,it analyzes the problems existing in China's trademark coexistence regulations and puts forward four suggestions for the handling of China's trademark coexistence issues.At present,domestic judicial practices and theories tend to allow a wide range of trademark coexistence.The author believes that with the standard of likelihood of confusion,in addition to coexistence causing by specific historical reasons,we need to limit the situation of trademark coexistence.By forming a more practical and specific standard of likelihood of confusion,we can set up the unified judgement standard for trademark coexistence.