Draft Revision to China’s Trademark Legislation

The China Nationwide Mental Property Administration (CNIPA) has published a draft revision to China’s Trademark Legislation and referred to as for feedback from the general public. On this submit and others that may comply with, we’ll have a look at essentially the most important proposed revisions and contemplate how they could impression international companies. Right this moment we start by taking a look at some proposed adjustments relating to the definition of what constitutes a trademark and absolutely the grounds for the refusal of a trademark software.

In the meanwhile, China’s Trademark Legislation defines emblems as “any indicators, together with phrases, graphs, letters, numbers, three-dimensional symbols, colour mixtures, sound or any mixture thereof, which might be able to distinguishing the products of a pure individual, authorized individual or different group from these of others could also be utilized for registration as emblems.” The draft revision of the regulation would see the addition of the time period “different parts” (其他要素) to the checklist above, paving the way in which for the registration of other forms of indicators, resembling scents and position marks.

Article 10 of the present regulation prohibits the registration of marks “detrimental to socialist ethics or customs, or having different unwholesome influences”. The draft revision would see language added to the related clause, to incorporate marks which might be dangerous to the “wonderful Chinese language conventional tradition” (中华优秀传统文化). Such a prohibition could possibly be an issue for manufacturers that incorporate sure Chinese language cultural icons into their emblems, even when there isn’t any intention to offend.

Lastly, the present Article 11 prohibits registering the “generic title, picture, or mannequin quantity” of a product. The draft revision would moreover prohibit registering the “technical time period” (技术术语的) of a product, offering additional readability.

In future posts, we’ll be taking a look at different potential adjustments beneath the draft revision, together with some that would see more durable measures in opposition to bad-faith registrations and protections for well-known emblems.