CHINA PATENT & TRADEMARK LAW OFFICE
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    • Why do you need to register a trademark in China
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    • The Difference Between Copyright, Trademark and Patent
    • How And Why To Trademark In China
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    • How To Protect Your Intellectual Propery (IP) Rights In China
    • 7 Steps to Protect Your Intellectual Property in China
    • China is strengthening intellectual property protection
    • What should a foreign business know about filing a trademark in China
    • A Guide to the Chinese Trademark Registration Process
    • Why you should file your trademark in China now
    • Why is a Trademark Watch Important
    • Differences Between Trademark and Copyright
    • Avoiding IP Infringement with Chinese Sourcing
    • Cracking down trademark squatters under amended trademark law in China
    • How China is acting to combat bad faith trademarks
    • Intellectual Property protection when doing business in China
    • China's intellectual property rights protection improved to create a sound business environment
    • China’s race to become global intellectual property leader
    • China strengthens intellectual property rights protection prior to Beijing 2022
    • Important Trademark Development from China for 2022: What US Brand Owners Need to Know
    • How to Protect Trademarks in China
    • A simple guide to intellectual property in China
    • An Overview of the Latest Amendment to the Chinese Patent Law
    • What We Do When Trademark Squatters Get Smarter in China
    • The most important patent and IP business developments in China in 2021
    • A simple guide to trademark registration in China
    • Protecting your intellectual property in China
    • How To Enforce Intellectual Property Rights In China
    • What China’s new patent laws mean for life sciences
    • China extends lead over U.S. in global patents filings, U.N. says
    • What Do China’s High Patent Numbers Really Mean
    • How to Protect Your Intellectual Property Rights in China
    • Protecting your intellectual property in China
    • Procedure of filing trademark in China
    • The Importance of Having a Chinese Brand Name
    • Why Does Hong Kong Attract International Businesses
    • What’s the Difference Between Patents, Copyrights and Trademarks
    • How to initiate a trademark infringement civil proceedings in China
    • How to Brand your products for the Huge China Market and Reduce Your Risk
    • 8 Trademark Mistakes Your Start-Up Must Avoid
    • What’s the Difference Between OEM and ODM Products
    • What the amendment to Article 4 of the Chinese Trademark Law means for bad-faith trademark filings
    • China starts rebuff of various metaverse trademark applications amid rush to hype the internet’s next generation
    • China, US and Hong Kong trademarks – A quick guide
    • Working with Chinese Trademark Agencies – A Dangerous Game, or Delicate Tightrope
    • China will improve its IP system
    • 12 Intellectual property Protection Tip
    • How to protect your brand in China
    • China Trademark And Brand Development Index 2021: Which Are China's Top Provinces
    • Must I Register My Company Name as a Trademark in China?
    • What You Need to Know About China Trademark Registration as a Foreigner
    • How to File a Trademark in China
    • How to Register a Patent in China
    • How to effectively deal with the preemptive registered trademark in China
    • China’s Trademark Regime: How to Protect Your Brand in the Mainland
    • China Issues Stricter Rules on Trademark Use
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China has been speeding up its legislative efforts in protecting trademark rights and improving its trademark administration. In 2021, China issued a number of new rules and regulations on trademark practice.

Here is a quick summary of some important legal and practical updates from the past year that foreign brand owners and foreign trademark practitioners need to know:
  1. Detailed Rules Against Bad Faith Filings – The China National Intellectual Property Administration (the “CNIPA”) recently updated its Trademark Examination and Review Standards (the “New Standards”). Significant legal and practice changes have been introduced by the New Standards, which became effective on January 1, 2022. One of the most interesting changes is that the New Standards provide detailed rules and guidelines against bad faith filings not for purpose of genuine commercial use under Article 4 of the Chinese Trademark Law. These detailed rules and guidelines are very useful to the examiners the Chinese Trademark Office (“TMO”) in identifying and refusing bad faith filings in trademark examination, as well as to brand owners in combatting pirate trademark filings in oppositions and invalidations. We first blogged about this change to the law in 2019.
  2. Prior Use in China Requirement Relaxed – Another important change for foreign brand owners is that the New Standards no longer require that the “prior use” in relation to the opposition and invalidation grounds for protection of prior-used mark rights under Article 32 of the Chinese Trademark Law has to be “prior use in China”. The New Standards now only requires a brand owner to show that the influence of its prior use (which can be foreign use) has extended to China.
  3. Update Your Registrations Details or Face Cancellation – In late December 2021, the CNIPA issued its new Guidelines On Assessing General Violation of Trademarks. One of the important changes introduced by this new Guidelines is that failure to update/record the changes of the registration particulars, such as change of name and registered address of the registrant, among other things, will be deemed an act of “self-alteration” of trademark registration particulars which may attract administrative correction order. The New Standards mentioned above provides similar obligations on trademark registrants in keeping their registration particulars up-to-date. The New Standards further provides that if a registrant fails to comply with a correction order to update its trademark particulars, the relevant registration will be cancelled.
  4. Let’s Go Faster – Pursuant to a notice issued by the CNIPA in May 2021 which requires the examiners of the TMO and CNIPA to shorten the process of trademark prosecution, trademark practitioners have seen that by the end of 2021, the average time for trademark examination has been shortened to 4 months, and the average time required for completing a trademark registration has been reduced by 1 month from 8 months to 7 months accordingly. The time frame for assignment recordal, opposition, review of rejection and invalidation have also been shortened to 1.5 months, 12 months, 5.5 months and 9 months respectively.
  5. No More Paper – Starting January 1, 2022, the TMO would no longer issue registration certificates in paper form.
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  • Home
  • About
  • IP Services
    • Trademark
    • Patent
    • Utility Model
    • Design
    • Copyright
  • Translation
  • News
    • Why do you need to register a trademark in China
    • What do you need to do to register a Chinese trademark
    • The Difference Between Copyright, Trademark and Patent
    • How And Why To Trademark In China
    • How do I protect myself from Intellectual Property Theft in China
    • How To Protect Your Intellectual Propery (IP) Rights In China
    • 7 Steps to Protect Your Intellectual Property in China
    • China is strengthening intellectual property protection
    • What should a foreign business know about filing a trademark in China
    • A Guide to the Chinese Trademark Registration Process
    • Why you should file your trademark in China now
    • Why is a Trademark Watch Important
    • Differences Between Trademark and Copyright
    • Avoiding IP Infringement with Chinese Sourcing
    • Cracking down trademark squatters under amended trademark law in China
    • How China is acting to combat bad faith trademarks
    • Intellectual Property protection when doing business in China
    • China's intellectual property rights protection improved to create a sound business environment
    • China’s race to become global intellectual property leader
    • China strengthens intellectual property rights protection prior to Beijing 2022
    • Important Trademark Development from China for 2022: What US Brand Owners Need to Know
    • How to Protect Trademarks in China
    • A simple guide to intellectual property in China
    • An Overview of the Latest Amendment to the Chinese Patent Law
    • What We Do When Trademark Squatters Get Smarter in China
    • The most important patent and IP business developments in China in 2021
    • A simple guide to trademark registration in China
    • Protecting your intellectual property in China
    • How To Enforce Intellectual Property Rights In China
    • What China’s new patent laws mean for life sciences
    • China extends lead over U.S. in global patents filings, U.N. says
    • What Do China’s High Patent Numbers Really Mean
    • How to Protect Your Intellectual Property Rights in China
    • Protecting your intellectual property in China
    • Procedure of filing trademark in China
    • The Importance of Having a Chinese Brand Name
    • Why Does Hong Kong Attract International Businesses
    • What’s the Difference Between Patents, Copyrights and Trademarks
    • How to initiate a trademark infringement civil proceedings in China
    • How to Brand your products for the Huge China Market and Reduce Your Risk
    • 8 Trademark Mistakes Your Start-Up Must Avoid
    • What’s the Difference Between OEM and ODM Products
    • What the amendment to Article 4 of the Chinese Trademark Law means for bad-faith trademark filings
    • China starts rebuff of various metaverse trademark applications amid rush to hype the internet’s next generation
    • China, US and Hong Kong trademarks – A quick guide
    • Working with Chinese Trademark Agencies – A Dangerous Game, or Delicate Tightrope
    • China will improve its IP system
    • 12 Intellectual property Protection Tip
    • How to protect your brand in China
    • China Trademark And Brand Development Index 2021: Which Are China's Top Provinces
    • Must I Register My Company Name as a Trademark in China?
    • What You Need to Know About China Trademark Registration as a Foreigner
    • How to File a Trademark in China
    • How to Register a Patent in China
    • How to effectively deal with the preemptive registered trademark in China
    • China’s Trademark Regime: How to Protect Your Brand in the Mainland
    • China Issues Stricter Rules on Trademark Use
    • News
    • News
  • Contact