In recent years, as the relationship between intellectual property and international trade has become closer, many complex issues have arisen in the intersection of international trade and international protection of intellectual property. Parallel import is a typical international trade issue caused by intellectual property protection.

The so-called parallel import generally refers to the issue of whether the intellectual property rights holder or exclusive licensee has the right to prohibit the import of legally produced products from abroad. That is, in international trade, the legal holder of intellectual property rights products A party imports and sells the product through legal channels to a country where the intellectual property rights are protected without the consent of the relevant intellectual property right holder in the importing country. The parallel import issue essentially reflects the conflict between intellectual property trade and goods trade, as well as the contradiction between intellectual property protection and international trade liberalization. It is gradually becoming a hot topic that attracts much attention and controversy.

In fact, my country’s legal regulations on parallel imports are still in an immature state, both from the perspective of legal provisions and judicial protection. At the international level, our country is a party to the World Trade Organization and the World Intellectual Property Organization, and has concluded and participated in the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, the Madrid Agreement for the International Registration of Trademarks, the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, A series of important international intellectual property protection treaties such as the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. These treaties basically do not address the issue of parallel imports or leave this part of the issue to each contracting party to stipulate on its own. In this way, my country's legal issues related to parallel imports are mainly resolved based on domestic laws. However, my country’s three basic intellectual property laws, namely the Patent Law, the Copyright Law and the Trademark Law, do not involve the issue of “parallel import”. Similarly, my country's Anti-Unfair Competition Law, Foreign Trade Law, Customs Law and other laws that should cover parallel imports do not cover issues in this field.

Since my country currently lacks legal basis for parallel imports, the phenomenon of parallel imports that occurs in real life is far more than the number of lawsuits filed in courts. Intellectual property rights holders suffer from the difficulty of defining the scope of their rights. There is no way of knowing my country’s attitude towards parallel imports. In the past few years, because my country is a developing country with low production costs and has always adopted a high tariff policy on imported goods, cases of parallel imports to China have been rare. However, judging from the development trend of international trade, parallel imports are now more and more likely. For example, the reduction of my country's trade barriers will open the door to existing products with potential parallel import trends. The substantial reduction in tariffs and quotas has, on the one hand, greatly reduced the transaction costs for parallel importers and increased the possibility of parallel imports; on the other hand, it has also enabled parallel imported products that previously entered the country through smuggling channels to be transferred to formal channels, increasing the number of parallel imports. Parallel import traffic. In addition, due to the weakening of import quota licenses and market access, the foreign trade management rights of enterprises will be realized, which also prepares the institutional prerequisites for the occurrence of parallel imports in our country. Moreover, from a global perspective, there are also many parallel import disputes caused by Chinese companies exporting intellectual property products to foreign countries. Therefore, enterprises must pay sufficient attention to the issue of parallel imports in international trade. It is an inevitable trend for my country's development to institutionally identify and regulate parallel imports. Before the system is established, enterprises should have the necessary understanding of the basic meaning and possible consequences of parallel imports so that they can make reasonable business decisions based on fully estimating various market risks.