Research On The Registered Trademark Revocation System

Registered trademark revocation system means that after granted registered trademarkright, other party applies for revocation or raises a lawsuit under relevant law which registrantbreaches, and trademark management office or court revokes registered trademark right andmakes it end from then. This system is used to solve problems that presumption of registeredtrademark distinctiveness conflicts with real fact. It is one of the registered trademark exitmechanisms. Its significance is to keep registered trademarks vigorous, regulate market’scompetition order and protect consumers’ interests. China’s revocation system basing oncurrent trademark law still has some defects, like confusion of concepts, strong administrativepower, unreasonable legal reasons and so on. These problems make practical dilemma. So it isurgent to perfect it by drawing lessons from foreign experience. The structure of this paper isas follows:Part on is to introduce the conception of registered trademark revocation system.Trademarks include registered trademarks and unregistered trademarks. And only the formercan be revoked. Considering of revocation’s content, quality, and relevant words foreigncountries using, this system should be called registered trademark revocation system.Part two is to analyze the theoretical basis of registered trademark revocation system. Thereasons why this system is designed and built like this are as follows: Firstly, trademarkdistinctiveness is dynamic. Comparing with other intellectual property objects, the greatestcharacteristic of trademark distinctiveness is dynamic with the cognition change of relevantpublic by using embedded social structure mold to analyze. Therefore it is possible to losedistinctiveness after registered. And the presumption can not go against real fact. Sorevocation system is needed under certain circumstances. Secondly, registered trademark’sobligations. Particularly, it assures natural law obligation to use mark correctly and otherpositive law obligation. When registrant fails to perform these obligations to some extent, andlaw will completely deny registered trademark. Thirdly, cultural basis of revocation system.When the trademark had strong personality attributes and got right only by using, the markcould not be revoked or revocation was limited. Only after trademark registration systemestablished and idea about trademark matured in commercial society, the revocation systemhas been built. Part three is to discuss the reasons of registered trademark revocation. The main popularreasons in countries are as follows: firstly, trademark is not genuinely used during anuninterrupted reasonable period. Because trademark is the outcome of commercial activity,building a reasonable revocation system also should follow its rules. Then making suitableperiod should base on enterprises’ average lifespan. In terms of valid reasons for non-use,although generally it is judged in individual cases, when countries or regions in war-time orother emergency situation, putting on record in advance can meet the demand of society aboutlaw’s efficiency. Secondly, genericide. With perspective of language cognitive science,genericide is created by situation where trademark become a metonymy for goods species orgeneric term. In reality, registrants, competitors, consumers, medias and governments all willplay an important role. The subject standard of genericide is “relevant public” in the languagegroup sense, not the general consuming public about whole society. Only in this context,trademark overprotection will be avoided, judgment can meet social real situation andlanguage group’s public interests will be protect. Meanwhile, because of dynamicdistinctiveness, a mark can be trademark again after revoked. Thirdly, the trademark is liableto mislead the public, particularly as to the nature, quality or geographical origin of thosegoods or services. Some countries also put trademark confusion into revocation reasons whichis still in dispute.Part four is to focus on how to perfect China’s registered trademark revocation system.As we know, China’s revocation system is exotic. In history, it has become administrative one.Current system is built by1982Trademark Law and has many defects. Now it is glade to seethat trademark law amendment draft has finally made some developments. For example,canceled issues like transferring registered trademark by registrant himself, added genericide,perfected start parties of revocation system, and canceled limitation of revoked markregistering again. But the change is not complete. Changing registered trademark or registeredinformation by registrant himself, and inferior quality reasons are still be kept. So the draftshould be perfected. And China ought to take international common reasons, and abandonadministration thoughts about trademark, cancel these unreasonable articles, and add thereason that misleading the public, particularly as to the nature, quality or geographical originof those goods or services.