Some issues of trademark protection and unregistered designations that have become widely known in China

Abstract

China’s legislation is being improved to meet modern needs of society in protection of intellectual property. The theory of Chinese law considers not only the protection of trademarks, but also the protection of those designations that have become widely known as a result of their use. At the same time, the competition of such designations with trademarks can lead to an imbalance in the protection of rights. The relevance and novelty are due to the fact that studying the practice of applying certain measures in the field of human rights protection, including in legislation and the law of other countries, will reveal their features. The work used such research methods as search, analysis, systematization, and comparative jurisprudence on the topic under study. The theoretical and practical significance is determined by the relevance and conclusions about the need to improve the regulation of relations in the field of trademark rights protection. The work resulted in conclusions about the effectiveness of legal measures aimed at protecting trademark rights and unregistered designations that have become widely known in China. The variety of court decisions made in similar categories of cases, insufficient legal regulation of the use of well-known designations, and conflicts of interest with trademark holders lead to some legal uncertainty. China’s Trademark Law provides for the possibility of providing judicial protection for a violated right to an unregistered, well-known designation. The introduction of judicial supervision makes it possible to ensure the relationship between the state system and society. The trademark control procedure encourages and ensures the faithful fulfillment of obligations. Judicial control helps to eliminate legal uncertainty. At the same time, there is a need to distinguish between the concepts, methods of trademark protection and the designation that has become well-known, since there are still controversial issues of theory and practice of rights protection.