气味商标法律研究

【作者】 池振华；

【导师】 陈乃蔚；

【作者基本信息】 复旦大学 ， 法律， 2010， 硕士

【摘要】 气味商标是商标法领域内一个崭新的话题。随着科技的发展与新型商业模式的应用,作为商业活动的产物,商标也开始逐渐从传统的可视性商标向听觉、味觉、嗅觉等商标发展,气味商标就是在此过程中产生的新型商标。不过,由于气味商标的特殊性,对它的保护相对于其它类型的商标面临了更多的理论及现实上困难,在全球也尚无共识性的保护标准。我国商标法目前就对其仍然处于观望状态,国内关于气味商标的研究也受到限制,极少有文献对此进行涉及。然而,面对我国商业营销及经济发展的要求,是否或者如何将气味纳入商标保护范围将会是我国接下来所面临及有待思考的内容。为此,本文首先以气味商标在实践中遇到的质疑与难题为切入点,讨论气味商标发展受到限制的原因,找出现实困境与问题,作为后文探讨的基础。接着,本文对国外的气味商标立法和实践情况进行比较研究,分别分析了美国、欧盟、澳大利亚、非洲等国家和地区相关案例与实务,对各国气味商标保护的情况及所采取的立场与方法进行分析,通过比较法视野的观察,从中进行借鉴。在最后,结合前文的分析并以我国现实发展要求为立足点,对我国气味商标的审查标准进行思考与探讨,提出了气味商标的显著性、非功能性、图样表示等审查标准,以期能对我国气味商标以及商标类型的发展有所裨益。时至今日,气味商标仍是一个充满争议的课题。从实践来看,虽然气味商标在一些国家获得了承认与保护,但是,在世界范围内,已注册的气味商标相对于传统商标来说仍然犹如沧海一粟,气味商标发展中的各种现实问题让我们无法过分乐观,许多问题还需要我们继续在实践中进行探索。但是无论如何,可以预见,随着经济的发展与鼓励创新的现实要求,气味商标绝不会是商标发展史上的匆匆过客,在某些领域,气味商标必定可以成为一个企业最有价值的品牌标识。因此,借鉴和吸收国外成功的实践经验,立足我国现实土壤对气味商标等新类型的商标进行探索,寻求适宜的保护制度,不仅可以促进我国商标立法的新发展,还可以主动参与到国际新型商标法律保护体系的创制之中,做出我们的独特贡献。更多还原

【Abstract】 Scent Marks is a brand-new subject in the field of trademark law. With the development of science and technology and the application of new business model, trademarks, as the product of commercial activities, have also developed from traditional visual ones to new types.Yet due to its specialty the protection of scent mark with respect to other types of trademarks is still faced with even more theoretical and practical difficulties. There is still no worldwide protection standard which reaches an accord. The Trademark Law of our county now takes a wait-and-see attitude towards this issue and correlative researches are confined to a certain degree. There are extremely rare documents that refer to scent marks. However, in face of our country’s commercial marketing and the demands of the economical development, it is foreseeable that if or how scent should be protected by the Trademark Law should be faced and well-thought.Therefore, this essay takes the questioning and challenges which scent marks meets with in practice as a breaking-through point, discusses the reasons why scent marks is restricted during its development, seeks out its practical difficulties and problems, and thus lays the foundation of further discussion. Then, conducting a comparative study of the legislation and the practices on scent marks in foreign countries, this essay respectively analyses related cases and practices in the USA, Europe and Australia and through a view of comparative law analyses how these countries protect scent marks and their stands these countries took and thus borrows some ideas. At last, combining the analyses mentioned above and taking its practical development in our country, this essay, on thinking and discussing our country’s examining guidelines on scent marks, offers its own examination guidelines on its distinctiveness, un-functionality and graphical representation of the trademark existing in the examining procedure, and hopes it may do some good to the development of the scent marks and trademark types in our country.Up to now, the examination and protection of scent marks is still controversial. Though it has obtained recognition and protection in some countries, scent marks that has been registered around the world is still like a drop in the ocean. Facing the various kinds of practical problems in its development, we cannot be overly optimistic and we should keep on exploring the questions in practice. But it is foreseeable, with the development of economy and the actual requirements of encouraging innovation, that scent marks will not be a mere passenger in the history of trademarks and, in some field, may be the most valuable brand logo an enterprise owns.Learning and absorbing from the successful practical experience in foreign countries, exploring the new types of trademark like the scent marks while keeping a foothold on our country’s reality, and seeking an appropriate protection system will not only promote the new development of the legislation of trademark law in our country, but make our own special contribution as well while participating actively in creating a new international trademark legal protection system.更多还原