From the analysis of the causes of trademark infringement, the intellectual property system was implemented relatively late in my country, and cross-border e-commerce is a new business model that has developed in recent years. Therefore, in the process of development, inadequate management and lack of systems are common. Many small businesses only focus on expanding the market and seeking more orders. They lack awareness of the importance of intellectual property rights, and cannot consciously respect the intellectual property rights of others, and arbitrarily plagiarize the intellectual achievements of others. For example, in order to expand the market influence of its own products and increase market share, the xx jewelry manufacturer in Yiwu, Zhejiang, arbitrarily uses logos similar to others’ registered trademarks on its own products. It was not until the right holder claimed compensation that it knew that its behavior was illegal, causing unnecessary economic losses to the company. Fundamentally speaking, the company’s own registered trademark is an effective measure to prevent trademark infringement disputes.
Based on the two reasons that the trademark registration system can effectively play the distinguishing function of trademarks and is conducive to achieving a balanced protection of related interests, the trademark laws of modern countries generally adopt the trademark registration system. The so-called trademark registration system is the general term for the substantive and procedural rules involved in a series of activities such as the applicant submitting a registration application to the registration authority in order to obtain the exclusive right to use the trademark, and the trademark registration authority deciding whether to grant the registration and grant the exclusive right to the trademark through examination. The trademark registration system takes the procedural requirements and substantive conditions of trademark registration application and examination as the core content, and also involves relevant rules such as granting the exclusive right to the registered trademark and confirming the validity of the registration.
The trademark registration system, as a system choice for obtaining the exclusive right to use the trademark, is an important means to give full play to the distinguishing function of the trademark and balance the protection of the interests of all parties. In the case of regional differences in the trademark registration systems of various countries, cross-border trademark registration can be achieved through an international coordination system.
The so-called international coordination system for cross-border trademark registration is not a comprehensive unification of the trademark registration systems of various countries, or the establishment of a single trademark registration system that transcends national sovereignty, but a gradual narrowing of the differences in the trademark registration systems of various countries and the expansion of the application of unified rules through the conclusion of a series of international treaties, so as to achieve the unification of registration rules within a certain range. The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights is a global trademark registration treaty. The Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks was signed on June 27, 1989 and entered into force on December 1, 1995. The number of contracting parties has increased steadily. As of August 2017, the Madrid Union has 99 contracting parties. The People’s Republic of China signed this protocol on September 1, 1995, and it came into force for my country on December 1, 1995.