Reverse confusion and forward confusion
Compared with reverse confusion, forward confusion is what we usually call trademark confusion, that is, considering whether the last trademark is confused with the previous trademark, making consumers mistake the goods of the user of the last trademark for those of the previous trademark. Positive confusion mainly focuses on whether the post-trademark will be confused with the prior trademark, not whether the prior trademark will be confused with the post-trademark. On the contrary, reverse confusion considers whether the prior trademark is confused with the subsequent trademark, which makes consumers mistakenly think that the product comes from the user of the subsequent trademark. If some large companies deliberately use the trademarks of some small companies, consumers will not confuse the trademarks of large companies with those of small companies after a lot of advertisements and promotions, but may conversely think that small companies are subsidiaries of large companies, so small companies can no longer use their trademarks independently, which will be threatened by reverse confusion. [4] Compared with forward confusion, the difference between reverse confusion and forward confusion lies in the different directions in which confusion occurs.