On April 18th, Quality Brands Protection Committee of China Association of Enterprises with Foreign Investment (QBPC) and the Legal Affairs Committee of China Association of Enterprises with Foreign Investment jointly held an Online Seminar on the Interpretation of the Guidelines for Trademark Review and Examination, at which about 80 QBPC members’ representatives were present.
Zheng Nan, senior expert from the Examination and Administration division of the Trademark Office of China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA), was invited to explain the main differences between the new version of the Guidelines for Trademark Review and Examination and the previous version, preventing malicious trademark registration and other provisions, and exchanged views with the attendees on relevant issues. The seminar was chaired by Michael Yu, Chair of QBPC Legal Committee. Chen Bing, Vice President of Legal Affairs of P&G China, delivered an opening speech.
Zheng Nan introduced the background and content of the guidelines. First of all, in terms of legislation, since the introduction of the Trademark Examination Standards in 1983, there had been four revisions respectively in 1994, 2001, 2005 and 2016. The 2022 Guidelines had been formulated based on these previous versions. Secondly, the Guidelines also met the various needs of China's judicial practice. For example, the trademark applications in China had surged in recent years and accounted for more than 54% of the global total. Moreover, China's experience and reform achievements in cracking down on illegal acts such as malicious trademark application also needed to be summarized and consolidated. The Guidelines is divided into two parts. Referring to the Civil Code, Trademark Law and relevant judicial interpretations, the first part covers formal review and general affairs administration.which regulates and sorts out the formal review of trademark application, the classification of commodity services and trademark retrieval elements, and other relevant trademark business reviews. The second part is about review and examination, which is divided into overview, the review and examination of malicious not-for-use trademark registration applications, the review and examination of marks that must not be used as trademarks, the review and examination of distinctive features of trademarks, the review and examination of similar trademarks, etc. In her presentation, Zheng provided participants with rich background and practical guidance.
During the Q&A session, Zheng Nan answered the questions raised by the participants.