美国的知识产权保护 IPR Protected In US （一）

当品牌方想要保护某个产品的外观时，首先想到的就是商业外观的知识产权保护。
When a brand owner wants to protect the appearance of a product, trade dress intellectual property protection should come to mind immediately.
商业外观：永久保护
Trade Dress: Perpetual Protection
当根据属性确定了产品的来源时，商业外观权利为产品的包装和外形提供保护。
Trade dress rights provide protection for product appearance and configuration when those attributes have come to identify the source of the product.
适用范围
Broad Scope
商业外观权利涵盖的产品属性类型极其广泛。颜色、声音、甚至气味都可以作为商业外观来保护。然而，商业外观权利很难获得，而且提供有限的救济措施。在产品包装的类型下，商业外观不被认为是固有显著的，因此商业外观只能证明第二含义（通过长期广泛的使用而获得的区别于其原有意义）后才能注册。在美国，相关消费群体已经开始将产品的形状、颜色、声音或气味与单一来源联系起来。
The types of product attributes that trade dress rights cover is extremely broad. Color, sound, even smell can all be protected as a trade dress. Trade dress rights, however, are difficult to obtain and provide limited remedies for enforcement. In the case of product configurations, trade dress is not considered to be inherently distinctive, thus trade dress can only be registered upon proof of secondary meaning i.e., that the relevant consuming public has come to associate that shape, color, sound, or smell of a product as only coming from a single source.
红底鞋只由鲁布托制造。克里斯提·鲁布托在1993年就有了生产红色鞋底的想法。普通法上的商业外观权利只在具有第二含义下才能享有。与其他类型的产品保护不同，商业外观将产品的外观作为一个整体来看待，这意味着产品的细微部分可能不会受商业外观的保护。
Red soled shoes are only made by Louboutin. Christian Louboutin had the idea for red soles in 1993. Common law trade dress rights can only be enforced upon a showing of secondary meaning. Unlike other forms of product protection, trade dress looks at the product's appearance as a whole, meaning that smaller subset of the presentation might not be protectable as trade dress.
禁令性救济
Injunctive Relief As Remedy
商业外观诉讼最常见的结果是禁令救济。有法院认为，与专利和版权不同，强制令所要求的不可挽回损害是在发现侵权后自动确定的，造成经济损失的情况很少。在第九巡回法庭上，若要想获得利润，必须要有蓄意。而律师费更是少之又少。据《兰姆哈法》，给予律师费用仅限于“例外”案件。
The most frequent out come of trade dress litigation is injunctive relief. Some courts hold that the irreparable harm required for an injunction is automatically found upon a finding of infringement, unlike patents and copyrights. Monetary damages are rare. In the Ninth Circuit, willfulness is required for an award of profits. Awards of attorney's fees are even rarer. Under the Lanham Act, awards of attorney's fees are limited only to "exceptional" cases.
三倍赔偿
Treble Damages
然而，如果商业外观的侵权使用达到“假冒”的程度，并且原告的商业外观在被诉称侵权之前已经注册，那么原告有可能获得三倍的损害赔偿，或高达200万美元的法定损害赔偿。
但是，并不是所有的侵权行为都是“假冒”行为。法律将假冒商标定义为“与在美国专利及商标局主要注册机构注册的相同商品和服务的商标相同或实质上不可区分的非真品商标”。
However, if the infringing use of the trade dress rises to the level of a"counterfeit" and the plaintiff's trade dress has been registered prior to the alleged infringement, the plaintiff has the potential to receive treble damages, or up to $2,000,000 in statutory damages. However, not every infringement is a "counterfeit." A counterfeit mark is defined by statute as "a non-genuine mark identical to or substantially indistinguish able from a mark that is in use and registered on the USPTO's principal register for the same goods and services."
永久性
Perpetuity
商业外观的另一个好处是潜在在无限的保护期限，这其他所有类型的知识产权都不所具有。只要没被放弃或没有变得通用，商业外观一直存续。商业外观可以在美国的海关进行登记。
Another benefit of trade dress rights that all other forms of intellectual property lack is the potentially infinite duration of protection. Trade dress rights last as long as the trade dress is not abandoned or does not become generic. Trade dress registrations can be registered with United States Customs.