Trade Dress Protection Of The Law In China

Trade dress, initially created by the United States Courts in their cases, fails to appear in the statutory definitions of Chinese law. Initially, the term trade dress signifies the labeling or packaging of a product. However, with the awareness of its commercial values, the meaning of trade dress broadens to the product's overall image described in terms of size, color, shape, and texture. Also, restaurant decor or particular sales techniques may function as source-identifier and thus invoke trade dress protection. The elements of these goods or services, because of their own characteristics and long-term use, can serve as a source of identifier of the goods. Consequently, these elements should be protected by law.Trade dress has already been protected in US,UK, Europe,Australia, and Japan, to name just a few. However, it hasn't been accepted as an independent legal object in China. Although the Copyright Law, Patent Law, Trademark Law and Anti-Unfair Competition Law can provide a certain degree of protection to trade dress, it's really insufficient and incomplete. Therefore, this dissertation aims to find a way to ameliorate the protection of trade dress in China.The dissertation probes into regulations and cases of the United States, Europe and relevant international organizations, as well as the current practice of trade dress protection in China, and-analyses how to improve China's trade dress protection.The structure of this dissertation is as follows:The first part is an overview of trade dress, including the current regulations of some advanced countries and international organizations, the concept and values of trade dress and the necessity for its protection in China.The second part discusses the characteristics and common classifications of trade dress and distinguishes some similar concepts by comparison.The third part summarizes the relevant legal protection standards home and abroad, i.e.,distinctiveness, non-functionality and likelihood of confusion.The fourth part focuses on legal protection of trade dress in China and its inadequacy. This section summarizes the advantages and disadvantages of those Chinese laws that can protect trade dress, including the Copyright Law, Patent Law, Trademark Law and Unfair Competition Law. These laws protect certain types of trade dress from different perspectives, but each law has its own limitations. The author illustrates the reasons why Chinese current laws are difficult to fully protect trade dress. Then, in the fifth part, the author proposes a way to revise the trademark law and unfair competition law of China, which is the author's research fruit. The author aims to come up with suggestions to enhance our protection level of trade dress and to eliminate disputes about trade dress between enterprises.