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Trademark searches and number of registered trademarks in China

 

On June 1st, 2022, CNIPA has published its 2021 official annual report. According to the data recently published, at the end of 2021 there are 37 million registered trademarks in China. The number is quite astonishing. Think only that the USPTO – the Patent and Trademark Office of United States – only counts 2,9 million registered trademarks at Q2 2022.

Without entering in the merit of the reasons behind the explosion of trademark filing in China in recent years or its political and economic consequences, as trademark attorneys, we wish to highlight a basic concept: the more trademarks are registered, the more complex is to register new trademarks. In this especially true in China, where CNIPA (the Chinese Trademark Office) performs a strict substantial examination of all new trademark applications.

Whenever someone files a trademark application in China there will be an examiner making a substantial registrability examination of the said application. Such examination will regard the absolute grounds of registrations, such as not being identical or similar to international organization signs, or national flags or similar signs, and being provided with distinctiveness, but also the similarity with priorly filed or registered trademarks.

This is the key element to take in consideration, the number of priorly approved trademarks impact on the examination of new trademarks. Therefore, whenever thinking to file a new trademark application in China it is important to perform a search of prior identical/similar trademarks.

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The search is indeed an essential step in the trademark application/registration process. It is needed to screen if there are trademarks, filed or registered, in a date before of the application date that might block the application process.

The search can be done using the public resources of CNIPA or can be done using special purpose software. In any case it is better that search results are interpreted by expert trademark attorneys.

If the trademark to be filed includes more than one distinctive element it will be necessary to make screening of each distinctive element, for example to Latin word part, the Chinese words part and the figurative part.

The search shall take into account the goods and services for which the trademark is going to be filed. The search can also go more in details into the specific sub-class in which the trademark is going to be included and classified thank to the special sub-classification system in place in China (visit our HFG X-Class tool to discover the sub-class system). The sub-class system can be a powerful tool to obtain registration even in crowded classes.

In conclusion it is essential/important:

  • making the search before filing the trademark;

  • checking each distinctive element of the trademark;

  • screening the trademark for the relevant goods and service (class);

  • have special focus on the sub-class relevant.

CONTACT US FOR ANY QUERY IN RELATION TO TRADEMARKS SEARCH, TRADEMARK FILING OR THE CHINESE SUB-CLASSES SYSTEM.

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