In commercial activities, the manufacturer of a certain brand (usually the owner of the brand) sells original goods to downstream dealers, who then sell them to end consumers. This is very Typical sales chain. During the distribution process, for various reasons and motivations, dealers need to change or reset the original packaging of goods, which triggers relevant legal disputes. This involves the issue of trademark infringement.

The act of repackaging the original packaging of goods into new packaging

Repackaging goods is a common way for dealers to retail. The goods purchased by dealers may contain a large number of goods in a single package, but ordinary consumers only need to purchase a small amount at a time. At this time, they need to disassemble the original packaging and package the goods in the original packaging. For decoration and aesthetics, , portability and other needs, dealers will inevitably have to create new packaging and trademarks. Obviously, in the process of making sub-packaging, the dealer made and used other people's trademarks without the authorization of the exclusive trademark owner, and was therefore suspected of trademark infringement.

Although the act of repackaging may not necessarily cause confusion among consumers, the workmanship, design, and aesthetics of the self-manufactured packaging must be somewhat different from the original packaging, and these differences will make consumers mistakenly believe that the changed packaging The packaging comes from the trademark owner and its manufacturer, which will reduce the goodwill of the trademark owner and damage the important functions of the trademark such as beautifying the product, promoting the product, and increasing the value of the product. This will result in serious damage to the trademark even though there is no confusion about the source of the product. The goodwill of the object pointed to.

Of course, in order to meet the actual needs of consumers, dealers sometimes have to disassemble and sell them, and for the sake of aesthetics and protection of the goods during distribution, it is indeed necessary to repackage them. However, if the dealer can do this at this time, Marking in a prominent position that the packaging is made by a dealer can prevent the trademark owner's goodwill from being affected. At the same time, it can also make the trademark only play an "indication" role at this time, thus only constituting a typical trademark indication sense. fair use.

The packaging of high-end goods of the same brand is used for low-end goods

Based on various motives, dealers use the packaging bags or other forms of packaging, decoration design, etc. of high-end goods of the same brand to Packaging of low-end goods.

Obviously, this behavior is different from typical trademark infringements because it objectively does not cause consumers to misunderstand the source of the goods: both high-end and low-end goods come from the same manufacturer. business. In other words, the counterfeiters did not fabricate or misrepresent the source of the goods. However, this behavior essentially creates confusion between different grades of goods and misleads the relevant public. Although this behavior does not destroy the function of trademarks to indicate the source of goods, it hinders other functions of trademarks. In addition to indicating the source of goods, trademarks also have derivative functions such as quality assurance, advertising, and identity demonstration. For example, the so-called quality assurance function is that a trademark convinces consumers that the product has an abstract source that assumes responsibility for the quality of the product. The so-called identity display function refers to the function of conveying information such as the consumption level and social identity of product users through trademarks. As we all know, in order to diversify operations and attract multi-level consumer groups, manufacturers often launch different brands under the same brand and products of different grades associated with them based on differential price strategies. Although different brands come from the same brand, Although the sources of goods are different, there are large or small differences in the selection of raw materials, manufacturing processes, quality control, publicity intensity, additional services and price levels.

The proliferation of high-end packaging that packages low-end goods is inconsistent with the name and reality, which also dilutes and damages the goodwill of brand manufacturers. In short, the act of creating confusion between goods of different grades from the same source also infringes upon the normal power of trademark rights, reduces the social evaluation of the goods, and ultimately damages the goodwill of the trademark owner, constituting trademark infringement. .