China's market nowadays attracts more and more attentions from foreign businessmen due to the financial crisis, and thus many foreigners flood into China's market in recent years. So while occupy the Chinese market, how to protect their brands from being counterfeited or stolen has been one problem many foreigners concern about. Nowadays, the most direct and effective way for protecting brand is to apply for trademark registration. However, since the foreigners don't understand the legal regulations of Chinese trademark registration, they may fail to submit necessary files timely to the relevant departments after the application being rejected, and then eventually lose the best opportunity to gain a registered trademark, which may cause irreparable damages. This article will introduce how the applicants safeguard their rights and interests after the trademark application is rejected, hoping to offer some help to the foreign businessmen who may encounter such problems.
If the application for trademark is rejected, the trademark office will notify the applicants in written form (i.e., Notice of Rejection). The applicants can apply for reexamine to the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board within 15 days since they receive the Notice of Rejection, in order to obtain registered trademark. The applicant deadline, the period for review, related costs and the necessary documents are listed as follows.
1.) Applicant deadline, the period for reexamine, and related costs
The applicants can apply for review to the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board within 15 days since they receive the notice of rejection. And the 15 days are calculated from the posting date on the envelope of the Notice of Rejection to the posting date of the Application. If 15 days are not enough, the applicant can submit the Application for Extension to the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board, and the time limit is 30 days. The period for reexamine is about 18-24 months since from the application, and the charge is RMB1500, which doesn't include the agency fees1 if the client entrust an agency.
2.) Documents need to be submitted
The applicant should submit the following documents by applying for reexamine:
1. Application for reexamine of trademark, in duplicate.
2. The original Application for trademark registration, the Notice of Rejection as well as the envelope used to send the notice.
3. Reason for reexamine, material directory, evidence directory, as well as evidence material, in duplicate.
4. If the applicant is a company, a copy of the business license should be submitted; it the applicant is natural personal, a photocopy of ID card must be submitted.
5. The entrusted agency needs to submit The Trademark Proxy, in duplicate.
The most essential files are the reexamine reason and the evidence material, which are the essences the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board focus on. If the committees support the reason for reviewing and the evidence is sufficient, they will revoke the decision made by trademark office, and thus obtain the registered trademark via reexamine. Specifically, the reasons can be listed from the non-approximate appearance between the reference trademark2 cited by trademark office and the rejected one, or the differences lie in the commercial fields as well as the design concept and such angles, etc. As for the evidence, the applicant had better prove that the trademark has been applied intensively to the commercial activities before application. If the trademark has been registered in any other country, the applicant should submit the registered documents in that country. Meanwhile, the applicant can also submit the evidence that the trademark has been widely applied in media campaign activities, such as the company brochure, small gifts for customers, etc. If the evidences are not complete during the application for review, the applicant can apply for extension to submit while apply for the review; the defer time to submit the evidence is three moths since the date of applying for reexamine.
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1. According to the related regulations in China's Trademark Law, foreign enterprises must entrust a Chinese agency to handle the trademark registration in China.
2. Reference trademark refers to the registered trademark which is cited in the Notice of Rejection, in order to dhow the similarity between the rejected trademark and the registered one.
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