Reverse Trade Mark Passing Off And Its Legal Regulation

Reverse trade mark passing off, compared with its passing off, refers to changing or removing the trade marks on other manufacturers' goods and then remarketing the goods without permission from the registered trade mark owner. Such an action infringes the exclusive rights of the trademark owner, with damage to the interpretable association between the mark and the product, and causing the mark unable to distinguish the product from others. Such an action is intended to win business reputation associated with the registered trademark and, apparently against fair play, constitutes unfair competition. Also there is an infringement of the consumer rights because in so doing the public is deceived in such a way as to think that the goods are being offered by the trademark owner.This paper is to, in the first place, clarify how reverse trademark passing off differs from and runs similar to the related actions and to offer workable methodology to identify and treat the passing off. Further, this paper is to, referring to foreign laws and international treaties such as TRIPS, offer some suggestions to contribute to the legal regulation of China's trade mark law in this regard. Considering that this is a complicated area of law and so is the infringed object, this paper also take the liberty to suggest that reverse trade mark passing off should be regulated both in China's counter-unfair-competition law and its consumer rights law so as to prevent reverse trade mark passing off, to protect the rights of both the trade mark owners and consumers, and provide an all round legal means to preserve the health and order of the market.