竞争视角下的商品通用名称认定问题研究

On the Identification of General Commodity Names from Competition Perspective

解决知识产权的垄断性与社会公众对知识产品合理需求之间的矛盾,已成为知识产权法的重要使命。在商标法中,存在着权利人的利益、消费者的利益、竞争者的利益等,商标法中的利益平衡具体表现为商标垄断和自由竞争之间的平衡。为了维持这种平衡,对商标权的限制成为必然。在商标侵权及不正当竞争等类型的案件中,涉嫌侵权方通常会选择"商品通用名称的正当使用"作为抗辩理由,故是否属于商品通用名称的判定是此类案件裁判的焦点。然而,由于我国立法中该领域判定规则的不完善,此类案件的处理在全国出现了莫衷一是的尴尬局面。这种局面一方面引发了大量当事人上诉、申诉,浪费了大量司法资源,另一方面又损害了法律的可预测性,使商标和商品通用名称的使用始终处于不确定状态。

One important mission of intellectual property law is to solve the contradiction between intellectual property monopoly and reasonable public demand of knowledge products. Owing to the co-existence of various interests with regard to rights holders,consumers and competitors,the interest balance in trademark laws is one between trademark monopoly and free competition.It is inevitable to limit trademark rights to maintain this balance. In lawsuit cases of trademark infringement and unfair competition,the alleged infringer usually takes ＂the proper use of general commodity names＂as a defense,which accordingly becomes the judgment focus whether the issue concerned falls within that of general commodity names. However,the imperfection of China＇s relevant legislation rules results in the embarrassing lack of nationwide judgment agreement. On the one hand,this situation triggers numerous litigant appeals and complaints,which wastes precious judicial resources. On the other hand,it also damages legal predictability,arousing uncertainty in the use of generic trademarks and commodity names.