With the steady growth of trademark ownership, the difficulty of trademark registration has been increasing. Many businesses are likely to fail after spending a lot of time and money. Therefore, before registering a trademark, it is necessary to understand the precautions and risks of trademark registration. In the following pages, Xingzhi Intellectual Property will introduce to you the risks of trademark registration.

In short, there are mainly four risks in the trademark registration process:

1. Objective blind spot risks

Every aspect of applying for a registered trademark After the application documents are submitted to the National Trademark Office, there will be a period of 2-3 months when the trademark registration cannot be found. During this blind period, the trademark information and dynamics cannot be retrieved. If a company applies for a trademark during this period that is identical or similar to an earlier trademark within the blind period, objective risks will arise.

2. Unregistered well-known trademarks cannot be retrieved

Article 13 of my country’s Trademark Law stipulates that my country provides special protection to unregistered well-known trademarks. If the trademark applied for registration is identical or similar to an unregistered well-known trademark on the same or similar goods, the Trademark Office will not register it and prohibit its use. Therefore, when a well-known trademark is not registered, it cannot be detected through the Trademark Office database, which will cause certain obstacles to trademark searches. Moreover, well-known trademarks that have been registered in my country directly enjoy cross-category protection. For example, a well-known trademark in the gaming industry is only registered in the 9th core category. However, because it is a well-known trademark, other applicants cannot register similar or identical trademarks in other categories. However, there is no way to know which trademarks are well-known trademarks during the search, so this is an inevitable risk.

3. Others’ prior rights cannot be retrieved

Article 31 of my country’s Trademark Law stipulates: “Others’ existing prior rights” refer to the Rights that others have acquired before a person files an application for trademark registration, such as design patent rights, copyrights, business name rights, personal names, etc. Because trademark rights can easily conflict with these rights, the Trademark Law stipulates that applying for trademark registration should not damage the existing prior rights of others. For example, Jordan Sports’ trademark case disputes, etc.

4. The risk of trademark opposition raised by others

Sometimes, even if the applicant’s trademark registration application is initially reviewed and approved by the Trademark Office and announced, it will not be approved within the statutory three months. During the statutory announcement period, anyone (for commercial purposes or other reasons) may file an objection in accordance with the law to prevent the applicant's trademark from being registered. Such as the famous trademark application opposition case of "National Liquor Moutai".

Trademark registration often takes a long time and also consumes a lot of time of the applicant. In this case, it is a good choice to hand over all matters related to trademark registration to a professional agency such as Ruxingzhi Intellectual Property, and with the help of a professional team, you can avoid problems and some risks. If you have questions about trademark registration, just consult Xingzhi Intellectual Property Customer Service.