The Criteria for Determining Trademark Infringement (hereinafter referred to as the Standards) was officially promulgated and implemented by China National Intellectual Property Administration. This is the first time that China National Intellectual Property Administration has issued trademark infringement law enforcement standards after full investigation, demonstration and revision. The standard adheres to the principle of strengthening trademark protection, based on the needs of law enforcement practice, and solves the actual law enforcement problems, which has important guiding significance for the handling of trademark infringement cases.
The method of judging trademark infringement is clarified.
The judgment of trademark infringement in the standard is based on the method of using the same or similar trademarks on the same or similar goods, and the post-condition of whether it constitutes confusion, and defines the terms of trademark use, the same goods and services, similar goods and services, trademarks identical to registered trademarks and trademarks similar to registered trademarks. This paper enumerates the use behavior of trademarks and the manifestations of the same trademarks, and clarifies the methods and precautions for judging whether it belongs to "trademark use", whether it constitutes "the same goods or similar goods", "the same or similar trademarks" and "easy to be confused". On the basis of summarizing the methods of trademark infringement judgment for many years and aiming at the characteristics of trademark infringement in the new situation, this series of articles established a complete and scientific theoretical standard for trademark infringement judgment method at the official level for the first time, which pointed out the way and direction for the handling of trademark infringement cases in practice.
Improve the details of trademark laws and regulations.
At present, some clauses in the Trademark Law and its implementing regulations are controversial in practice, which brings trouble to law enforcement. In view of these pain points, the standard has clarified the details in the relevant provisions. Restrict the case of "selling goods that are not known to infringe the exclusive right to use a registered trademark", and clarify that in five cases, the parties should be deemed to know or should know, and "uninformed sales" shall not be applied to be exempted. At the same time, it is clear that the provider cannot be found because the infringement suspect provides false or unverifiable information, which is not regarded as "explanation provider" and cannot be exempted, effectively preventing the seller of infringing goods from abusing legal loopholes and evading administrative responsibility. In terms of protecting legitimate prior rights, it is clear that if the application date of a registered trademark is earlier than the application date of a design patent or the creation completion date of a copyrighted work with evidence, the relevant trademark law enforcement departments can investigate and deal with trademark infringement cases, so as to prevent some infringers from abusing prior rights and hinder or delay trademark infringement law enforcement procedures. The definition and judgment method of pre-used "influential trademarks" are clarified, which limits the use of such trademarks and better defines the boundary between protecting pre-used trademarks and protecting late registered trademarks.
Solve the problem of difficult law enforcement at the grassroots level.
At present, trademark infringers constantly change the means of infringement, and cover up the substantive behavior of trademark infringement through some seemingly legal "edge ball" means, which has caused trouble to grassroots law enforcement. Through a large number of investigations of law enforcement personnel at the grass-roots level, this standard sums up some unconventional means of infringement, and makes it clear that these acts belong to trademark infringement and should be investigated for responsibility. In view of the behavior that some infringers combine several trademarks and turn them into a new trademark in order to approach famous brands, Article 22 of the Standard clearly points out that as long as the final form of trademark use is the same as or similar to others' trademarks, and it is easy to be confused, this behavior can be regarded as trademark infringement. In view of the behavior that some infringers add different colors to make their registered trademarks the same as or similar to others' registered trademarks, Article 24 of the Standard clearly stipulates that it belongs to trademark infringement as stipulated in Item 2 of Article 57 of the Trademark Law. In building engineering and decoration engineering, many builders buy infringing raw materials at low prices in order to make huge profits, and use these raw materials in the project. What kind of trademark infringement this behavior should belong to is controversial. Article 25 of the Standard clearly classifies this behavior as the third item of Article 57 of the Trademark Law, that is, the infringement of selling trademark infringing products.