What are the criteria for classifying trademark infringement?

In practice, many of us may come across issues such as what are the criteria for classifying Trademark infringements, but because we don’t know much about it, many things are not very clear. The editor of Legal Savior Network will explain in detail what are the criteria for classifying trademark infringement.

What are the criteria for classifying trademark infringement

1. Use infringement

refers to the act of using an identical or similar trademark to the registered trademark on the same or similar goods or services without the permission of the registered trademark owner. Use infringement is a common type of trademark infringement in practice. According to the relevant provisions of the Trademark Law, using another person's registered trademark must obtain the consent of the trademark registrant and sign a registered trademark use license contract. If you use someone else's registered trademark without consent, regardless of whether you are at fault, it will constitute an infringement of the exclusive right to use the registered trademark of others. Inseparable from use infringement is trademark dilution, which is another form of use infringement. For example, some companies or individuals use someone else's well-known trademark as a common name for a certain type of goods or services, or as a manufacturer's name or domain name without the permission of the trademark owner, making the trademark indistinguishable from others. The common name, manufacturer name, and domain name of such goods or services will damage the distinctiveness of the trademark and cause the trademark to be diluted. The direct infringement object is the trademark, and the indirect infringement object is goodwill.

2. Sales infringement

refers to the act of selling goods that infringe the exclusive rights of a registered trademark. Distributors are the intermediary between commodity producers and consumers and have the obligation to provide consumers with qualified commodities. If a dealer provides consumers with goods that infringe on the exclusive rights of others' registered trademarks, it is undoubtedly helping the trademark infringer achieve its goals and harming the rights and interests of the trademark registrant and consumers, so it is also defined as trademark infringement. Regarding this kind of trademark infringement, the Trademark Law before the amendment stipulated the principle of fault liability, that is, the dealer will be held liable for trademark infringement only when the dealer knew or should have known that the goods it distributed were infringing goods. If the seller is not at fault, trademark infringement will not be established. However, although this provision takes into account the interests of no-fault dealers and is conducive to the circulation of goods, it is not conducive to the protection of trademark rights and brings certain difficulties to law enforcement in practice. Because dealers generally will not admit that they are distributing infringing goods "knowingly" or "should have known", it is not easy to judge whether a dealer subjectively "knows" or "should have known". The new Trademark LawThis has been revised to remove the requirement of “knowingly” or “should have known”. The Trademark Law stipulates this type of behavior as trademark infringement in order to set up a legal obstacle in the circulation process to make it difficult for perpetrators of counterfeiting registered trademarks to achieve their goals and reduce the harm caused by trademark infringement to society.

3. Reverse counterfeiting infringement

Reverse counterfeiting infringement means without the consent of the trademark registrant , the act of changing its registered trademark and putting the goods with the changed trademark back on the market. This type of infringement was newly added when the Trademark Law was revised. The reason why reverse counterfeiting constitutes trademark infringement is that there is an inseparable internal connection between the trademark and the goods it marks. This internal connection deepens with the expansion of trademark reputation and product reputation. The function of trademark rights is to maintain the stability and development of this relationship. Behavior that destroys this connection affects the normal function of the trademark and damages the trademark rights of others. In reverse counterfeiting, the perpetrator is not the end user of the goods. This behavior artificially separates the connection between the trademark and the goods, deprives others of the opportunity for registered trademarks to expand their reputation through further circulation, and affects consumers. The cognition of the trademark registrant causes the trademark registrant's economic interests to be unable to be fully realized, and damages the trademark owner's exclusive right to the registered trademark, which constitutes trademark infringement.

4. Other infringements

Other infringements refer to infringements other than use infringement, sales infringement and reverse counterfeiting Acts other than infringement that cause damage to the registered trademark rights of others. According to the relevant provisions of the Trademark Law, behaviors that cause other damage to the exclusive right to use a registered trademark of others mainly refer to the following behaviors: that is, using a mark that is the same or similar to another’s registered trademark as a product on the same or similar goods. The act of using a name or product decoration to mislead the public; the act of deliberately providing warehousing, transportation, mailing, concealment and other convenient conditions for infringing the exclusive rights of others' registered trademarks.

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