Draft Revision to China’s Trademark Regulation

The China Nationwide Mental Property Administration (CNIPA) has published a draft revision to China’s Trademark Regulation and known as for feedback from the general public. On this submit and others that may observe, we’ll take a look at probably the most vital proposed revisions and contemplate how they may impression overseas companies. At this time we start by taking a look at some proposed modifications relating to the definition of what constitutes a trademark and absolutely the grounds for the refusal of a trademark utility.

For the time being, China’s Trademark Regulation defines emblems as “any indicators, together with phrases, graphs, letters, numbers, three-dimensional symbols, shade combos, sound or any mixture thereof, which might be able to distinguishing the products of a pure particular person, authorized particular person or different group from these of others could also be utilized for registration as emblems.” The draft revision of the legislation would see the addition of the time period “different parts” (其他要素) to the record above, paving the way in which for the registration of different kinds of indicators, reminiscent of scents and position marks.

Article 10 of the present legislation 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 may very well be an issue for manufacturers that incorporate sure Chinese language cultural icons into their emblems, even when there is no such thing as a intention to offend.

Lastly, the present Article 11 prohibits registering the “generic identify, 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 modifications below the draft revision, together with some that might see harder measures towards bad-faith registrations and protections for well-known emblems.