What are the forms of trademark infringement?

With the continuous development of social economy, new business models continue to emerge, and some new forms of trademark infringement will continue to appear. Trademark infringement is relatively common in economic life, and there are also many legal disputes about trademark infringement. Sometimes it is direct infringement, sometimes it is indirect, some are unintentional infringement, and some are intentional counterfeiting that constitutes trademark infringement. Today, the editor of Legal Savior Network has compiled the following content about the manifestations of trademark infringement to answer your questions. I hope it will be helpful to you.

What are the manifestations of trademark infringement

According to the provisions of Article 57 of the Trademark Law, what are the manifestations of trademark infringement? There are mainly the following categories:

1. Use infringement

Refers to the owner of an unregistered trademark Licensing is the act of using a trademark that is identical or similar to its registered trademark on the same or similar goods or services. 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 theThe interests of the at-fault dealer are also conducive to the circulation of goods, but after all, it is not conducive to the protection of trademark rights, and in practice it brings certain difficulties to law enforcement. 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 Law has revised this and canceled the provisions 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, which damages the trademark owner's exclusive right to the registered trademark, and 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.

my country's "Trademark Law" also makes more specific provisions regarding trademark infringement, which not only increases the operability of the law, but also intuitively tells people What constitutes trademark infringement? However, with the development of the economy, infringement activities have become increasingly diversified, and the update speed of the law is far from keeping up with the speed of social development and change. Therefore, in many trademark infringement cases, there is no direct evidence to be found.The legal provisions for direct use need to be analyzed in detail based on the circumstances of the case. If your situation is more complex, Legal Savior Network also provides online lawyer consultation services. You are welcome to consult.