In accordance with the Plan for Promoting the Trademark Work to Reach the International Standards promulgated by the State Administration for Industry and Commerce of the People’s Republic of China on December 30, 2009, by 2012, the examination duration of trademark registration in Mainland China should be controlled within 10 months, and the duration of opposition adjudication and trial of trademark invalidation should be controlled within 20 months.
In recent years, the number of trademark applications in Mainland China has rapidly increase nearly 100,000 annually. However, the capacity of trademark examination is not sufficient enough to deal with the rapidly increased trademark applications in a timely manner, resulting in excessive examination duration of trademark registration and large backlog of applications. The problem brings the public concern.
In order to solve the problem of large backlog of trademark applications, as of 2008, Mainland China has took a series of measures aiming at improving the capacity of trademark examination, hence the duration of trademark examination is gradually reduced from the past three years or so to one year odd, and is expected to be further reduced to one year or less in 2010. It- is proposed in the promulgated plan that the examination duration of trademark registration should be controlled within 10 months by 2012, which will provide greater convenience for development of enterprises.
In accordance with the statistics from the Trademark Office of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce of the People’s Republic of China, in 2009, the number of trademark registration applications in Mainland China sets a new all-time record again, and it is expected to reach 800,000 by the end of 2009. In the meantime, the amount of examined trademark registration applications increases even faster, it exceeded 1,000,000 by September 15, 2009 and is expected to reach 1,300,000 by the end of the year.
By the end of November of 2009, the trademark offices in Mainland China have examined 13,006,000 trademark registration applications (a year-on-year increase of 109.29%) and adjudicated 22,700 trademark opposition cases (a year-on-year increase of 128.37%). The cumulative total of registered trademarks in Mainland China is 4,159,900, and the amounts of trademark applications, examined applications and valid trademark registrations all rank the first in the world.
In addition, trademark protection, law-enforcement inspection on specialty shops, emporium and supermarkets, merchandise distribution centers and trademark printing enterprises, and administrative protection of right to the exclusive use of trademarks are strengthened across Mainland China. The number of trademark infringement and violation cases of all kinds investigated and handled by the industrial and commercial system of Mainland China are 37,600. Recognition and protection of well-known trademarks has also been continuously improved. By the end of December of 2009, 1,624 well-known trademarks have been recognized. Now the study on controlling the proliferation of well-known trademarks is also in progress.
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