Abstract: Trademarks have emerged from the market economy as indicators of the sources of goodsor services. In both the Anglo-American Legal System and the Continental European Legal System,trademark protectionhas undergone a historical development from torts law to the joint mechanism of trademark registration law andunfair competition law.With respect to the trademark registration, while Anglo-American System treats it as a notification that a trademark has been used or will be used in commerce, Continental European System regards it as an approach to acquiring the trademark rights. China has accepted the idea of trademark registration and protection of registered trademarks from Continental European System and adopted its own trademark registration law. However, there are some problems in the practice of the law, such as trademark squatting and trademark hoarding.China should takethe comparative study of the two major legal systems as its starting point andadhere to its existing trademark registration system, while at the same time draw on the idea from the Anglo-American System that the registration of a trademark is not a channel to acquire property rights, and solve its problems both at the theoretical and theoretical levels. The paper emphasizes that a trademark rights,as a kind of property rights, result from the actual use of trademark in commerce and the business reputation thereof; As the achievements of intellectual activity, they will never result from the registration by an administrative organ.

Keywords: trademark law; trademark registration; registered trademarks; malicious registration; passing-off; having a certain influence

Author:Li Mingde, a researcher at the Intellectual Property Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and a member of the National Intellectual Property Expert Advisory Committee.

Source: 8 (2021)Intellectual Property.