Hear from Stephen Yang and Nina Li as they discuss strategies to protect your Trademarks in China
Thursday 17th February 2022 at 3pm GMT – 5pm GMT
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Online Registration can be had here
In November 2019, the new Trade Mark Law entered into force in China. The most recent Trademark law entered in China introduces measures to curb bad faith trademark registrations. Below is the overview of the most important changes:
- The new law explicitly prohibits bad faith trademark filings. This does, however, not mean that such filings would never occur, as bad faith can be difficult to establish. Registering a trademark as soon as possible is still the best option for protecting trademarks.
- Anyone is allowed to oppose the registration of a trademark with CNIPA during the 3 months opposition period if they believe that the said trademark is being registered in bad faith.
- Anyone may request the Trademark Appeal Board to invalidate a trademark that was registered in bad faith. Furthermore, trademark invalidation requests on the grounds of bad-faith registrations do not face the 5-year statutory limitation, meaning that anyone can file the request of invalidation of a trademark based on bad-faith registration also after 5 years from trademark registration.
- Trademark agencies can be held legally liable for handling bad-faith trademark applications. This should further limit bad faith trademark registrations.
- The new law increased penalties for trademark infringement and allows the trademark owner to request that the goods bearing counterfeited registered trademark and materials and tools mainly used to manufacture the commodities bearing a counterfeited registered trademark be destroyed.
These changes will be discussed in greater depth at the Insight IP Virtual Boardroom on ‘Protecting Your Trademarks in China.