Cigarettes cannot use "Longevity" as a trademark, medicines cannot use "Universal" as a trademark, and clothing cannot use "Healthy Colored Cotton" as a trademark.

Each industry has its own trademark According to industry standards, once these key points are involved, the Trademark Office and Trademark Review and Adjudication Board will generally reject your trademark application!

Recently, when the trademark "Zhongnong Kangbi Selenium" was reviewed, the Trademark Office considered the trademark to be deceptive, so it was rejected!

What went wrong with the naming of this trademark?

It turns out that it’s because of the word “selenium”!

The applicant for this trademark is a biotechnology company, and the trademark is registered for Class 29 commodities such as "eggs; milk products; fruit preserves".

Therefore, the Trademark Office and the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board believe that the trademark in dispute contains the word "selenium" and combined with the designated eggs and other products, it is easy for the relevant public to believe that the raw materials of the product contain the nutritional element "selenium" needed by the human body. ”, thereby creating a misunderstanding about the raw materials of the goods, etc., constituting the situation stipulated in Article 10, Paragraph 1, Item (7) of the Trademark Law.

Article 1, Paragraph 1, Item (7) of the Trademark Law: Anything that is deceptive and likely to cause the public to misunderstand the quality and other characteristics of the goods or the place of origin shall not be registered as a trademark!

So how can we avoid trademarks being deemed deceptive?

1. Trademarks must not be deceptive or cause the public to easily misunderstand the trademark.

So, how should we understand the "public"?

In current judicial practice, it is generally believed that the “public” stipulated in this paragraph refers to the “relevant public”.

Compared with the general public, the criterion for judging deceptiveness is whether the relevant public is likely to misunderstand it, which avoids the possibility of losing the use and registration of certain marks as trademarks due to too low a deceptive threshold.

As for whether a trademark is deceptive, the subjective wishes of the trademark applicant do not need to be considered when judging.

Even if the applicant claims that the mark has no actual meaning and is not used to explain the relevant attributes of the goods or services, as long as the mark is objectively likely to cause misunderstanding by the relevant public, it constitutes Article 10 of the Trademark Law. The circumstances specified in Item (7) of this paragraph.

2. When registering a trademark, the relevant categories must also be taken into consideration

If "Zhongnong Kangbi Selenium" is registered in Category 25, that is, clothing, the trademark may be deceptive. There is no way to study it!

"Deceptive" specifically means that the words and graphics of a trademark mark conceal the truth about the quality, main raw materials, functions, uses or origin of the goods used in the mark. It is enough to mislead the public about the true nature of the product.

Therefore, it is necessary to judge whether it is deceptive by combining the trademark mark and the goods or services specified by the trademark!

3. Taking this case as an example, the trademark in dispute is the word trademark "Zhongnongkangbi Selenium", in which "selenium" is an essential nutrient element for the animal body.

The trademark in dispute is used on products such as Category 29 “eggs; milk products; fruit preserves”, which may easily lead the relevant public to believe that the raw materials of the product contain the nutrient element “selenium” required by the human body, thus causing negative consequences to the public. Misconceptions arise about the raw materials and other aspects of the product.

Therefore, the disputed trademark is deceptive.