A Study On The Parallel Importation Of Intellectual Property In The Form Of Overseas Shopping

Nowadays, as the blooming China’s economic and the improvement of people’s living standards, the desire and purchasing power of the national goods from around the world rise dramatically. Followed by the outstanding rise of overseas purchasing industry, the legal risks of overseas purchasing industry deeply hidden are appealed. On2012, two judgments of court of Beijing and Shanghai became the blasting fuse.The writer takes the phenomenon of overseas purchasing as a cut point to analyze the underlying legal relationship of overseas purchasing industry, which is intellectual property parallel import. By comparing several academic mainstream parallel importation defined, the author summed up the elements constitute intellectual property of parallel imports and to put forward my own definition of parallel imports to prove that the core legal issues of overseas purchasing is the intellectual property of parallel imports.Furthermore, the author tuned to discuss international treaties and national legislation and case law. Generally speaking, developed countries tend to take the territorial principle to prohibit parallel imports, while developing countries tend to take the theory of exhaustion of rights to allow parallel imports. Properly relax the restrictions of parallel importation is a trend of the development of national legislation.Finally, the writer discussed the legislation and cases on the issue of parallel importation in China. Since there is no current legislation about the issue, the writer suggested that China should adopt a more enlightened attitude to allow parallel imports. According to the specialties of overseas purchasing, the writer suggest that1, the Trademark Law should allow the parallel importation;2., the Patent Law should allow parallel imports with exceptions;3, the Anti-Unfair Competition Law should prohibits importers’vicious competition;4, more specific regulations should be made to guide certain issues. Allowing parallel import with exceptions is good to promote market competition and product flow as well as to protect the intellectual property rights to achieve win-win situation.