How to Determine Infringement of Trademark Exclusive Right

How to Determine Infringement of Registered Trademark Rights

In the commercial society, trademarks are one of the important assets of enterprises. They not only represent the image and reputation of an enterprise but also carry the trust and expectations of consumers. However, in fierce market competition, trademark infringement occurs from time to time, which not only damages the legitimate rights and interests of the right holder but also disrupts the market order. Understanding how to determine the infringement of registered trademark rights is particularly important.

According to relevant provisions of China's Trademark Law, acts infringing on the exclusive rights of registered trademarks mainly include unauthorized use of others' registered trademarks, counterfeiting ormanufacturing others' registered trademark symbols, etc. For example, in a case in 2025, a well-known clothing brand found a large number of counterfeit products of its brand on the market. The packaging and labels of these products almost completely imitated the style of the original brand, with even similar details, making it difficult for consumers to distinguish between genuine and fake products. This behavior clearly constituted an infringement of trademark rights because the unauthorized use of others' trademarks misled the public and may have caused economic losses.

To accurately judge whether there is trademark infringement, it is first necessary to confirm whether the involved trademark has been legally registered. Only when a trademark is approved and registered by the National Intellectual Property Administration and obtains exclusive rights can it be protected by law. Second, it is necessary to analyze whether the signs used by the accused infringer are identical or similar to the registered trademark. What is meant by identical is that the two trademarks cannot be distinguished visually, while similarity refers to cases where although there are certain differences, they are sufficient to cause confusion and misidentification among relevant members of the public. It is also necessary to consider whether the goods or services categories are consistent. Even if two trademarks are very similar, if they involve completely different goods or services, they generally will not constitute infringement.

It should be noted that the scope of trademark protection is not infinitely extended. For example, if someone reasonably uses a certain word for descriptive purposes and does not use it as an identifier to indicate origin, this situation is usually not considered an infringement. For instance, a milk production company mentioning in its advertisement that our milk is as rich as a certain brand, here the certain brand is merely used to describe the taste and is not used to indicate the source, so it does not constitute an infringement. Similarly, if someone uses a registered trademark for academic research, news reporting, or other public welfare activities, it may not constitute an infringement.

In recent years, with the development of e-commerce, online sales platforms have become new battlefields for trademark infringement. Many unscrupulous merchants take advantage of the anonymity and convenience of the Internet to sell a large number of counterfeit and inferior goods. In response, major e-commerce platforms have strengthened their intellectual property protection measures, such as establishing complaint and reporting mechanisms and introducing artificial intelligence technology for real-time monitoring. For example, Alibaba Group launched the Intellectual Property Protection Tech Brain, which quickly identifies and handles suspected infringing goods through big data analysis and machine learning algorithms. At the same time, consumers themselves need to be vigilant and try to choosechannels when purchasing goods to avoid falling into traps due to the pursuit of cheap prices.

In short, determining trademark infringement is a complex process that requires comprehensive consideration of multiple factors. For rights holders, once they find their trademark rights being infringed, they should promptly collect evidence and apply to relevant departments for rights protection; for ordinary people, they should support legitimate products and resist pirated ones, jointly maintaining a good market environment. Only in this way can every legitimate operator grow healthily in a fair and just competitive environment, promoting the healthy development of the entire social economy.