Article 57, Paragraph 2, of my country’s Trademark Law stipulates that “without the permission of the trademark registrant, a trademark similar to the registered trademark is used on the same kind of goods, or on similar goods. "A trademark that is identical or similar to a registered trademark and is likely to cause confusion" is an infringement of the exclusive right to use a registered trademark.
This regulation seems easy to understand, but the “confusion” in “easily leading to confusion” written at the end is difficult to understand. First of all, the word confusion is full of uncertainties, and in judicial practice, obscure concepts such as "reverse confusion" and "initial interest confusion" have appeared, making it more difficult for us to distinguish the meanings of various confusions. In theory and time, generally based on the process that consumers need to go through when purchasing goods or receiving services, we can distinguish trademark confusion caused by identifying trademarks into "pre-sale confusion" and "during-sale confusion". ” and “after-sales confusion” categories.
Social Standard Network focuses on what these three types of confusion are.
Pre-sale confusion, also known as "initial concern confusion" or "initial interest confusion", refers to the use of infringing trademarks, causing consumers to be confused about the trademark before consumption, causing consumers' attention and purchasing power to shift to on the goods or services indicated by the infringing trademark. Take the most common example. We saw KFC from a distance on the road, thought it was KFC, and wanted to eat it happily. But when we walked in, we saw that it was MFC, a copycat KFC. This is called pre-sale confusion.
In-sale confusion is easy to understand, that is, consumers can easily misunderstand the source of a product or service during the sales process.
Post-sales confusion is also called bystander confusion. Consumers are not confused during the sales process, but after the sale, it may cause the relevant public to have misunderstandings about the goods or services, which also creates confusion.
Social Standard Network will give you an example: an intellectual property lawsuit back then turned hostility into friendship. Adidas sued Adidas for infringement over the past five years, and finally the two parties reached a settlement. The Chinese trademark "Adidas" and the triangle logo were transferred to Adidas free of charge. The Chinese trademark and triangle logo will no longer be used and appear in terminal stores. middle. It can be seen that the trademark law protects enterprises that abide by the law and has nothing to do with the reputation or assets of the enterprise. Whoever occupies the word "law" can get the protection of the law!