A New study on Trademark Protection in Cyberspace from a Comparative Perspective

One of the areas of industrial property, which is most affected by developments of the borderless cyberspace, is trademarks area in which many challenges related to various fields such as territoriality principle, domain names, keywords and linking have been raised.As a result, the infringement of trademark owner's exclusive rights has been made easier. Many of these challenges, especially in the U.S. law, are considered as trademark infringement or at least trademark dilution to which the legislators have payed special attention. Even in the U.S. , case law has gone beyond and, in order to deal with the challenges, has put forward two innovative doctrines, namely "Nominative Fair Use" and "Initial Interest Confusion". The results of this study show that, in the Iranian Act on the Registration of Inventions, Industrial Designs and Trademarks, only the owner's rights infringement is sanctioned, which does not cover cases such as trademark dilution.Also and the important topic of fair use, which is necessary in cyberspace, has not been dealt with. Therefore, a reform of law is felt well.