Legal Restrictions On Anti-dilution Protection Of Well-known Trademarks

Along with today’s rapid economic growth and increasing commercia-lization,rademarks,specially well-known trademarks,have been attachedmuch attention due to their inherent huge commercial value,being elevatedthemselves as one of the most important intangible assets of the enterprise.Representing vast commercial radiation areas and huge market profits,hesetrademarks have played a key role in enlarging production scale,ncreasingprofit rate and strengthening competitiveness. With the internationalizationof intellectual property protection as well as the improvement in thetrademark owners’ awareness and enforcement of anti-infringement oftrademark rights,more and more countries are beginning to takeanti-dilution protection for well-known trademarks by adopting the dilutiontheory. The system of anti-dilution protection， based on the changes of thefunction of trademarks,ims to take special and expanded protection forwell-known trademarks. Its fundamental goal is to protect thedistinctiveness and identification of well-known trademarks fromblurring,arnishment and genericide,hich is beneficial to free competitionand consumers’ interests. The anti-dilution protection of well-knowntrademarks has become a hot issue in the field of intellectual propertyrights worldwide and a new trend in the protection of intellectual propertyrights. As a member country of the WTO,Chins has the obligation to makecorresponding provisions of anti-dilution protection for well-knowntrademarks,nd bring them into force. But, if the behaviour of the use of allunauthorized well-known trademarks non-restrictedly constitutes"dilution",this overprotection will greatly expand trademark owners’interests,which consequently breaks the mechanism of inner balance under the framework of the traditional trademark law,nd possibly leads trademarkowners to abuse their rights so as to monopolize market and gain excessprofits,nd results in various interest conflicts as well,hus impeding others’freedom of speech and damaging free and fair competition. The study onthe dilution behavior of famous trademarks in our country is still in itsinfancy and has relatively large defects in the legislation. Therefore,in viewof certain risks existing in the trademark dilution theory itself, we must becautious to integrate legal resources when we apply this theory to establishChina’s trademark anti-dilution system. That is to say,when takinganti-dilution protection for well-known trademarks, we must clearly definerelated and appropriate restrictions on the basis of not violatinginternational treaty and learning from experience of developed countries,taking into account others’ interests in order to safeguard public interests，and avoid illegal monopoly, which will ultimately promote the healthy andrapid development of China’s economy.In short, dilution has become an independent trademark infringementact internationally in the aspects of legislation, theory and practice andreceived a growing attention. Therefore, in order to not to fall into passivityin law enforcement, our legislation must take the initiative in responding tothis phenomenon and constitute a complete and standardized system. Asone of the late-development countries in trademark rights, China shouldadequately protect trademark rights so as to promote the advantageouseffect of trademark rights; however, the protection cannot go against thepurpose of setting up the trademark rights system. We should seek theoptimal balance between protection and regulation of the abuse. On the onehand, we should, when advocating the advantages of trademark rights,encourage innovation,promote economic development and improve socialand public interests; on the other hand, we should put restrictions ontrademark owners and prevent them from infringing others’ interests, thesocial and public interests as well as limiting competition in the market soas to give full play to the advantages of the trademark rights system.