| As a special business sign in the culture market, the title of a work plays an extremely subtle role of identification, which involves multiple legal relations. In terms of the basic function of identifying and distinguishing a particular work, the title of a work shall be protected by sui generis title right. If the title actually identifies the origin of the work, it may be protected as a trademark. As to cultural masterpieces, the titles also function as a channel of advertisement and promotion, of which merchandising right should be regulated by law. Although titles of works could be subject matter of multiple rights, they only enjoy very limited protection as "specific names of famous products" before the newly promulgated revision of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law in China. As a result, titles of works are not effectively protected domestically and Chinese enterprises lack the ability to enforce their rights and prevent risks when competing with their counterparts in overseas markets. In the revision of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law, China has made some beneficial explorations in introducing the legal framework of title protection. Although Article 6 (3) of the Law only explicitly mentions "main part of domain names, web names and web pages", the enumerative approach of legislation and its catch-all Article 6 (4) opens a possibility to provide the above-mentioned protection to titles of newspapers and magazine, films, software and video games, etc. In the short term, amendment to Article 6 (3) could be made on the basis of its judicial application so as to set up a more targeted sui generis regime of title protection. In the long run, it is necessary to revise both Anti-Unfair Competition Law and Trademark Law to enable the Trademark Law to cover title protection and officially establish sui generis title right. |
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