Research On Legal Protection Of China’s Laozihao (Time-honored Brand)

Laozihao(or “Time-honored Brand”) is a commercial phenomenon with Chinese characteristics, which clearly reflects the tortuous course of development of China’s commodity economy. Laozihao contains huge market value and the protection of Laozihao has being paid more and more attention. However, the existing research on Laosihao is not sufficient. Based on the concept definition and the historical features, this thesis theoretically researches the essence of the issue of Laozihao’s protection and discusses relevant issues.At the beginning, this thesis expounds the sense, the purpose and the object of the research. It clarifies Laozihao’s concept and expounds Laozihao’s features and the core problem in the protection of Laozihao-- the unclear ownership of Laozihao for the historical economic system changes. This thesis reflects the problem of Laozihao’s unclear ownership, expounds the necessity and feasibility of solving the problem. In the end it provides a solution which establishes a new right confirmation and protection mechanism for Laozihao brand. Through theoretical and empirical analysis, this thesis points out that Laozihao is not Zihao(the core part of a trade name in China), but a kind of brand, or in other words, a kind of commercial mark, which is born years ago and contains Zihao and word trademarks with goodwill from years of accumulation. Laozihao’s historical features lay the foundation for its huge commercial value. The weakness of legal protection of Laozihao is due to Laozihao’s unclear ownership stemming from the big changes in China’s economic system in history. The existing law is not able to solve the Laozihao’s problem, so the only way to protect the time-honored interest is to break the current legal restraint. It is necessary to solve the problem of Laozihao’s unclear ownership and it is feasible to solve it by breaking the current legal restraint. This thesis advises to establish a new right confirmation and protection mechanism for Laozihao based on the evaluation rules of China Time-honored Brand, and sets up a basic structure for this new system.