对“哈啤”案的几点思考——兼论商品特有名称的法律性质及其保护

我国反不正当竞争法禁止擅自仿冒知名商品的特有名称不是所谓的“中国特色”、一时之需。相对于注册商标,商品特有名称是商品表征中相对易变的部分,也是商品外观的重要组成部分,其存在是符合商品流通规律的。对于商品特有名称的简称等非正式名称,在具备公示、持续使用和特有性的条件下也构成商品特有名称,从而受反不正当竞争法的保护。商品特有名称在本质上是未注册商标,对其应限定于为相关公众所共知的范围内适度保护,才能保证经营者有相当的行为自由和较低的信息搜集负担。

Remarks on Hapi Case--Analyzing the Legal Nature and Protection of Product Housemarks

The repression of passing off housemarks of well-known products without authorization which regulated by the Law of The People's Republic of China Against Unfair Competition,is not a special phenomenon in China,nor is it a makeshift.Contrast to registered trademarks,housemarks are relatively inconstant tokens of goods and constitute the important part of trade dress,whose existence is in accordance with the rule of goods circulation in markets.Informal product names such as shortened forms of product housemarks can also constitute housemarks of this kind of product when they possess three properties below: publicity,continuous use and distinctiveness,and then be protected by unfair competition law.Being an unregistered trademark in itself,product housemark should be protected to an proper extent which is based on the familiarity of correlative public so as to guarantee freedom of market participants and reduce the burden of information gathering.