Civil Libility of Trademark for Indirect Infringer: Strict Liability or Blame-Based Responsibility

Trademark infringement is unauthorized utilization of a trademark without collection of permission from trademark holder. Unauthorized utilization of the trademark leads to civil liability for the infringer. What is not clear is the effect of awareness on the unauthorized utilization of the trademark. This dilemma has more confusion on indirect trademark infringement. Civil law on some countries takes liability of the infringer on the awareness. In this study using direct evaluation of internal laws of Iran and United State of America the role of infringer in civil liability after indirect trademark infringement was assessed. Results showed that according to current civil liability laws existance of damage and relationship between damage and infringement is essential for civil liability. In both systems awareness of infringer lead to criminal liability. However for indirect infringer the internal law of Iran is silent in regard to this matter. For this purpose it should be referred to civil law to assess awareness of infringer. Hence, the legislator need to clarify type of civil liability according to basic civil law to not be in contrary with other countries from intellectual property point of view. This new role may inhibit direct interpretation in Iranian courts.