作者：吴汉东
作者介绍：中南财经政法大学知识产权研究中心文澜资深教授
出版日期：2025年10月9日
内容提要 商业外观具有装潢、设计、颜色、形象等多种元素，由此构成产品或服务的独特视觉形象。上述元素的单一、部分或整体可作为不同权利和法益的保护对象，涉及经营性标记权与创造性成果权相关制度，横跨知识产权与反不正当竞争两大法域。同一商业外观之上的多元要素及其利益，产生了多重财产权利的竞合。在司法实践中，商品装潢法益与图形商标权、外观设计权、美术作品著作权的知识产权竞合，可归结为权利重叠、共存与冲突等不同类型。权利竞合实质上是法条竞合。解决商业外观权利竞合问题，是一个法律价值目标和司法政策立场的选择过程，其法律原则、规则构建及其适用的要点是：限制同一主体权利重叠现象，合理进行权利配置；承认多个主体权利共存状态，规范各自权利行使；解决不同主体权利冲突纠纷，明确“有瑕疵”权利的法律后果。商业外观知识产权的未来法律构造，应着力体现体系性、协同性和非冲突性的应然规范要求。
关键词 商业外观 权利竞合 反不正当竞争法 知识产权法
Abstract: Trade dress encompasses a variety of elements such as packaging, design, color, and image, which collectively form a distinctive visual impression of a product or service. These elements, whether considered individually, in part, or as a whole, can be the subject matter of different rights and legal interests, involving the regimes concerning rights to business identifiers and creative achievements. This issue spans two jurisdictions: intellectual property law and anti-unfair competition law. The multiple elements and interests embedded in the same trade dress give rise to the concurrence of multiple property rights. In judicial practice, the concurrence of different intellectual property rights—such as the legal interests in product packaging, figurative trademark rights, design patent rights, and copyrights in works of fine art—can be categorized into different types, including cumulation, concurrence, and conflict of rights. The concurrence of rights is essentially the concurrence of legal provisions. Resolving the issue of concurrence of rights in trade dress is a process of choosing between legal value objectives and judicial policy positions. The key aspects of constructing and applying legal principles and rules include: curtailing the cumulation of rights vested in the same right holder and reasonably allocating entitlements; recognizing the concurrence of rights among multiple rights holders and regulating the exercise of their respective rights; and resolving disputes arising from conflicts of rights among different right holders and clarifying the legal consequences of ‘defective’ rights. The future legal framework for trade dress intellectual property should strive to reflect normative requirements of systematization, coordination, and non-conflict.