Research On The Improvement Of The System Of Sound Trademark Law

Nowadays, with the rapid development of society, the marketplace competition are more and more intensity. In able to achieve success in the fierce competition, producers and operators carried out the brand strategy so that they can get a large portion of the market. In order to attract consumers’ attention, the manufacturers are trying different brand strategies constantly. In the past time, most brand is focus on the trademark designs or product packing in able to catch people’s eyes, but in the present, manufacturers have to use various senses to attract consumers in the complicated competition environment. The connotation of the brand is not only confined to traditional text, design and so on, but also extended to a more general sensory fields, such as sound, smell and touch. While hearing is the only way to stimulate the feeling of two cerebral hemisphere in human at the same time, and thus can affect people’s reaction and behavior. Merchants hope to establish a more effective contact between their products and consumers through the "multiple senses" pattern.As a category of the non-traditional trademark, sound trademark, has been legally protected in developed countries such as America, Australia, EU countries, and they have accumulated a wealth of practical experience. The Singapore Treaty on the Law of Trademarks and its detailed rules formulated by the WIPO also acknowledged the nontraditional trademark(including sound trademark) at the international level. In 2013,the third vote of the fourth session of the Twelfth Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress meeting put the trademark law amendment across and has formally come into effect on May 1st, 2014. Thus expanded the trademark protection scope, sound will be protected by the trademark law at the first time. However, sound trademark protection in our country is still in the primary stage, the new trademark law only mentioned that it should be put into the protection range of the trademark law, but didn’t ruled on its detailed rules in aspects such as concept, specific trial registration standards, processes. For example, how to trial a registered sound trademark in practice, what kind of elements are required to apply for registration, what way should be taken to solve the registration problem for the invisible trademarks such as sound trademarks. Currently, the legal protection is inadequate for sound trademark in our country, the judicial practice have some blank area, the application for registration and the infringement of sound trademark are challenging the current law of our country. This article starts with the concept, characteristics and classification of sound trademark, combines the foreign legislation practice and regional experience, in order to discuss the essential requirements of sound trademark legal protection in China. Further more, taking the basic national conditions in China in to account and puts forward some practical suggestions, improving the legal system of sound trademark law in our country. This article is divided into the following five parts.The first part is the introduction, mainly tells the background in the protection of sound trademark has become gradually international and the development degree of domestic commodity economy increasing higher, the traditional trademark already cannot satisfy the needs of economy and business. In order to go with the stream, our country had contained sound trademark into the scope of legal protection, which is a big step forward in the history of the trademark in China. This paper utilized the comparative analysis, comprehensive induction and the method of integrating theory with practice and other research methods to summarize the sound trademark legal system about home and abroad.The second part mainly elaborates the basic issues of sound trademark, sound trademark is simply a voice identification with signification which can be used to distinguish goods or services. Sound trademark has the characteristics which traditional trademark does not have, the most notable features of sound trademark is invisibility, at the same time also has the space and time interval, the stronger the impact and spread concealment and other features. This part also contain two classifying sound trademark which according to the different division standard, in order to facilitate the readers to grasp the sound trademark better. Also involves the history of sound trademark legal system and the meaning of sound trademark protection. The protection of sound trademark, whether it is in line with international standards for the development or the domestic brand course has a great significance.The third part is mainly based on the sound trademark registration censorship rules are mature in their countries. Based on the analysis comparison, sum up the sound trademark legal system, to which all relevant provisions of the pros and cons, find the system design that suits the situation of our country, to establish the legal system of the sound trademark perfection in China.The fourth part mainly expounds the defects of sound trademark law system in China at present, including sound deficiency in the system of trademark registration and trademark protection system. Sound trademark is an emerging thing in our country, trademark in our country has just set foot on the historical stage, which is not only lack of theory and practice. So its legal regulation is not perfect, and there are many defects and shortcoming, such as sound trademark conflicts with prior right and trademark infringement dispute shall be under the jurisdiction of network sound problems are inevitable reality.The fifth part is mainly aimed at the above problems puts forward the corresponding countermeasure and the suggestion, hope to speed up the sound trademark legislation in China, making all sorts of problems can be solved as soon as possible and on track, and further improve the sound trademark law system in our country.