Why should we register the copyright while registering the trademark?

Concept of trademark right and copyright

The trademark right refers to the right obtained by the trademark registrant to use the trademark exclusively and exclusively in the designated goods or services. However, a trademark is a sign with distinctive characteristics, which is adopted by the producer or operator of a commodity on the goods produced, manufactured, processed, selected or distributed by the producer or operator or on the services provided by the service provider to distinguish the source of a commodity or service; In short, it is a mark used on a product or service, that is, a brand.

Copyright, also known as copyright, refers to the general term of the property rights and personal rights legally enjoyed by natural persons, legal persons or other organizations in literary, artistic or scientific works.

Trademark right and the object of copyright protection

Trademark protection refers to signs composed of words, graphics, letters, numbers, three-dimensional signs, color combinations, or combinations of the above elements. The protection of trademark rights is based on distinguishing the suppliers of goods or services.

Copyright protection refers to works protected by the Copyright Law. A work is an intellectual creation that is original and can be reproduced in a tangible form in the fields of literature, art and science. The protection of copyright is based on the originality of the work (or called originality).

Protection of trademark right and copyright

Copyright applications are generally generated automatically without going through some special procedures. According to the provisions of the Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China, citizens, legal persons and organizations without legal personality in China take the completion of works as the symbol of copyright generation rather than the time of publication. The acquisition of trademark rights in our country must follow the trademark registration procedure, and implement the principle of application first; The Trademark Law of the People's Republic of China stipulates that a trademark approved and registered by the Trademark Office is a registered trademark, and the trademark registrant has the exclusive right to use the trademark, which is protected by law.

Significance of Copyright Registration

According to the provisions of the Copyright Law of China, copyright is automatically generated and works are registered voluntarily.

Whether the work is registered or not, the copyright legally acquired by the author or other copyright owners will not be affected. However, in the practice of protecting the rights of copyright owners, it is impossible to effectively prove the existence of rights due to the absence of copyright registration, which ultimately leads to the failure of the lawsuit. What is the reason? So why is it important to register copyright? The necessity of registration is mainly summarized as follows:

Unless there is other evidence to the contrary sufficient to overturn the content of the copyright registration certificate, the party holding the registration certificate will be recognized by the judicial or administrative authorities as the copyright owner of the work;

As the proof of rights, the copyright registration certificate is the precondition for the copyright owner to start the anti piracy action;

The registration of copyright is a necessary procedure for China's Guarantee Law to provide pledge guarantee for debts by using copyright of works;

The copyright registration certificate is the necessary certification document that the obligee shall submit to the evaluation institution when applying for the evaluation of the copyright value of a work;

The copyright registration certificate is a symbol of the obligee's competitiveness.

Reasons for the Conflict between Trademark Right and Copyright

Copyright and trademark rights are not the same in legal nature, but their boundaries are not clear-cut. Sometimes, the process of designing trademarks is also a process of creative intellectual labor. When a certain creative height is reached, trademarks can become works in the sense of the Copyright Law. If the trademark registrant and the trademark designer are the same subject or have obtained the authorization of the trademark designer, there will be no conflict of rights; However, if the two are not the same subject, for example, the trademark registration drawing is not his own work or even his own work cannot prove his own rights, then the conflict arises and the trademark registration application will be affected.

The conflict between trademark right and copyright

The conflict between trademark right and copyright is usually due to the unclear copyright ownership of the applied trademark. When the applicant applies for this work as a trademark, the copyright owner claims that the trademark copyright belongs to him, but the trademark applicant has not been authorized or can prove that the trademark copyright belongs to his own right certificate, thus resulting in a copyright dispute based on the trademark work.

Therefore, when someone applies for a trademark to infringe his or her own copyright, the applicant needs to provide evidentiary materials of the trademark's copyright. If the applicant cannot provide but the claimant can provide effective evidentiary materials, the trademark application will cause trouble; So far, the most effective and convenient way is the copyright registration certificate, so the significance of copyright registration at the same time of trademark application lies in this, that is, to ensure that the copyright based on the trademark belongs to itself, and the trademark application will not have the problem of copyright ownership.

Resolution of the conflict between trademark right and copyright

If a trademark has a copyright dispute based on a trademark work, according to the relevant provisions of the Trademark Law, if the copyright owner has objections to a registered trademark, he may apply to the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board to revoke the registered trademark, or request the court to order the trademark owner to stop using his registered trademark.

Due to the relatively limited trademark resources, the economic interest driven by the lack of independent innovation consciousness, and legislative omissions, the conflicts between trademark rights and copyright occur frequently. Therefore, when there is a conflict between copyright and trademark or other rights, copyright does seem particularly important; Although the automatic protection of copyright is implemented, this automatic protection cannot effectively prove the right of copyright when confirming the right, that is, the automatic protection of copyright has the disadvantage of confirming the right. Therefore, in order to avoid the ambiguity of copyright, it is the best way to ensure that there is no problem with trademark rights by registering copyright at the same time of trademark registration.