Research On The Legal Issues Of Coexistence Of Commercial Signs

Coexistence use of commercial signs means that different operators use the same or similar commercial sign to sell products or services,without affecting the business activities of other operators.The main ways of coexistence of commercial signs are legal coexistence and agreement coexistence.The coexistence of trademarks and other commercial signs,and the coexistence of other commercial sings are the main forms of coexistence of commercial signs.At present,the coexistence of commercial signs in China has been more common,but the analysis of existing cases and relevant provisions found that China's relevant institutions on the commercial signs of coexistence criteria appears extensive,general.This article introduces the relevant regulations and specific practices of Japan,Germany,Britain and the United States,and believes that the multi-factor judgment standards,public surveys and reputation judgment methods adopted by these countries are worthy of reference in China.Two identical or similar commercial signs in the market at the same time easy to produce confusion and unfair competition.Therefore,it is necessary to set appropriate conditions for the coexistence of commercial signs.In the process of hearing commercial sign coexistence cases,the court should concretize and clarify the conditions of co-existence and form a unified judgment rule.Subjective intent,visibility,and market confusion when judging the coexistence of business signs are several key considerations,the judgment of subjective intention should be noted that goodwill is not directly related to knowing,knowing can only be a supplementary factor.The judgment of subjective intention also needs to combine the significance,popularity,the way operators use commercial signs,the time and capital cost invested by operators in commercial signs and other factors.The sales time of the goods,the place of sale,the amount of sales,the sales area,the publicity investment of the products,and the awards should all be used as factors forjudging the popularity,the proportioin of each factor is different.The judgment of the possibility of market confusion can be judged by reference to foreign multi-factor judgment standards and consumer survey methods.The coexistence of commercial signs in the network environment is more difficult to identify,but sales,sales time,place,publicity investment and consumer surveys can still be used as factors to judge coexistence.With regard to the coexistence of commercial identification agreements,the coexistence agreement is the result of free negotiation between the two parties.In the absence of adverse effects on the public interest,the agreement should be respected,but in order to avoid future disputes or confusion,the content of the coexistence agreement is mainly it should include the areas in which both parties use the commercial sign and the parties should attach a distinctive identifier when using the commercial sign.Only by clarifying the specific conditions and standards that limit coexistence,and balancing the interests of the parties and the market.the coexistence of commercial signs can effectively promote the formation of a benign competition among competitors,stabilize the market competition order,and then reflect the market economy development and social benefits of intrinsic value of fair competition.