Till today, despite China''s attempts to move closer to a western-style rule of law, traditional Confucian political philosophies still govern much of Chinese thought. On the whole, people are more reserved in their conduct. Even if they can be aggressive in the way they think, but they will be unlikely to show it to others. Most people do not have the desire to apply legal knowledge to prevent their individual rights from being infringed, or maintain individual rights by the means of lawsuit. Therefore, despite the creation of trademark laws, the protection of trademark is possibly hindered by the Confucian tradition, which cherishes the concept of "li" in societal relationships.
4.2. Case Law & Statutory Law
I would submit that it is easier to apply the dilution law to protect well-known marks in common law jurisdiction than civil law jurisdiction. A general picture of the differentiation between common law jurisdiction and civil law jurisdiction may facilitate to understand this argument.
Firstly, the difference encompasses diverse interpretation methods, ie in civil law jurisdictions, the first step in interpreting an ambiguous law is to discover the intention of the legislator by examining the legislation as a whole, including the preparatory works, as well as the provisions more immediately surrounding the obscure text, while in common law jurisdictions, statutes are to be objectively constructed according to certain rules standing by themselves against a case law background.
Secondly, civil law goes from the general to the specific, whereas common law goes from specific to general. Trademark laws are applied to specific instances in civil law countries, while in common law countries court opinions apply as it follows "Stare decisis". At this point, it is conducive to the application of dilution theory. Because dilution criteria itself have complicated factors. To apply it properly requires a precedent to make reference. Although cases have some significance in civil law countries, they do not have real precedential (stare decisis) value.
Thirdly, there is a different order of priority in sources, i.e. civil law gives predominance to doctrine (including the codifiers'' reports) over jurisprudence, while the opposite is true in the common law.
Moreover, in the common law system, courts are trusted with a measure of creativity, giving them the acknowledged power to evolve the law gradually through the accretion of individual cases.
The US law is derived from the Anglo-Saxon model which is historically the foundation of the common law system. The American legal system, like the English, is methodologically mainly a case law system. The principle "Stare decisis" plays an important role in American judicial practices. Therefore, it seems that it is a good choice for the US to adopt the dilution theory to protect well-known marks.
In China, the difficulty is that statutes and regulations sit alongside social, cultural and economic norms, and they do not clearly prove determinative in a given case because of no "Stare decisis".
4.3. Economic Element''s Impact
From an economic perspective, trademark is a sign introduced to remedy a market failure. It facilitates purchase decisions by indicating the provenance of the goods, so that consumers can identify specific quality attributes deriving from their own, or others'', past experience. Trademark holders, on their part, have an incentive to invest in quality because they will be able to reap the benefits in terms of reputation.
In other words, trademark law becomes an economic device which, opportunely designed, can produce incentives for maximizing market efficiency. This role must, of course, be recognized, as a vast body of literature has done, with its many positive economic consequences.
As it is realized that there are underlying economic interests in strengthening well-known mark''s protection, and as the most developed country, the US owns a number of internationally recognized firms (well-known mark holders), it is of great importance for these firms to maintain their good reputation of products. Insufficient protection means limiting the ability of international firms to extract profits from their well-known mark products. Chinese enterprises should also pay attention to this point and advocate their legal rights actively.
4.4. The Influence of Government Policy in Trademark''s Protection
