The Trademark Infringement Liability Of Online Marketplace Provider

The newly revised "Trademark Law of China" came into effect on May1,2014officially, in which assistance of trademark infringement as a type had been writteninto trademark infringements. And in the "Implementing Regulations of TrademarkLaw" revised at the same time,“online commodity marketplace service” had beenlisted as a form of assistance of trademark infringement accordingly. Although thetrademark infringement of online marketplace provider has been written into thenewly revised “Trademark Law of China” as indicated above, the relevant regulationsare too principle and abstract to be implemented in practice very well. Therefore, thisarticle proposes some suggestions on improvement of regulations of internettrademark infringement liability in China through analyzing liability and obligation ofonline marketplace provider and further studying the regulations of indirect trademarkinfringement in foreign countries, in order to solve these increasingly serious problemarising from current internet trademark infringement disputes in China.According to "2014Annual Inspection Report of Chinese E-commerce Industry"(Simple Version) released by iResearch, with a rapid growth of the Chinesee-commerce market in recent years, the volume of complaints on internet shoppingare increasing sharply including unfair competition of enterprises, lack of creditsystem, flooding of fake merchandises and so on. Along with the rapid developmentof e-commerce industry, the forms of trademark infringement in traditional business models are experiencing transformation and evolution, and subsequently certain newcharacteristics and conflicts emerge. For example, many brands complain thedifficulty and high cost in online IPR protection; on the other hand, onlinemarketplace providers assert that it is impossible and non-reasonable for them tomake a prior supervision of trademark infringements of all venders on theirmarketplaces, and that is why they are not willing to undertake jointly and severallyliability for venders’ trademark infringements. This Article would like to focus onhow to reduce the contradiction between the two sides, how to find out a balancepoint between them and how to legislate on trademark infringement liability of onlinemarketplace provider reasonably.There are four chapters of this Article as follows:The first chapter analyzes the legal status and legal liability in trademarkinfringement of online marketplace provider, including different opinions in legalstatus, various analyses of legal liabilities and relevant criteria of online marketplaceprovider in trademark infringement.The second chapter further discusses the legal obligations of online marketplaceprovider, including relationship between liability and obligation, reasonableassignment of obligation to online marketplace provider and relevant judicialpractices in China.The third chapter introduces the regulations of indirect trademark infringement inforeign countries, including the history and development of indirect trademarkinfringement regulations in foreign countries, analyses of relevant foreign typicalcases and the enlightenments for us.The last part proposes some suggestions on improvement of regulations ofinternet trademark infringement liabilities in China, comprising of limitation ofcurrent relevant laws and regulations and certain detailed suggestions on how toimprove regulations of internet trademark infringement liabilities in China.