Trademark right is the abbreviation of trademark exclusive right, which refers to the exclusive right granted by the trademark authority to the trademark owner in accordance with the law to protect the registered trademark under national law. A trademark is a commercial sign used to distinguish goods and services from different sources. It consists of words, graphics, letters, numbers, three-dimensional signs, color combinations, sounds, or a combination of the above elements.

A design patent refers to a new design of a product’s shape, pattern, color or their combination that is aesthetically pleasing and suitable for industrial application. Appearance design refers to the appearance design of industrial products, that is, the style of industrial products.

From the above definition, there are the following differences between trademark rights and design patent rights:

1. The constituent elements of trademark rights and design patent rights are different. Design patents take aesthetics as the core and are creative, novel and practical. Trademarks are mainly for identification purposes and require distinctiveness, but they do not necessarily have aesthetic appeal. For example, trademarks such as "Goubuli", "Laogandaddy", "Laoganma" and "Jiugui" are hardly aesthetically pleasing.

2. Trademark rights and design patent rights have different functions. A trademark mainly distinguishes different sources of identical or similar goods or services through its distinctiveness. It is attached to the goods or their packaging and does not change the goods themselves, just like adding an identification mark to the goods. Appearance design highlights its practical characteristics and requires the beauty and novelty of the product. It changes and determines the appearance of the product and often becomes an integral part of the product.

In addition, the Patent Law confers different protection periods on trademark rights and design patent rights. The Patent Law gives design patents a protection period of 10 years. When the period expires, if the right holder does not apply for renewal, the patent rights will expire when the protection period expires. After the 10-year protection period for trademark rights granted by the Patent Law expires, the rights holder enjoys unlimited renewal opportunities for 10 years each time. If the right holder has no intention of terminating the trademark rights, theoretically the trademark rights are indefinite.