First, the objective reasons for the inevitable risk of trademark application
1, the enterprise has just been established, only considering the survival of the enterprise, ignoring the application for registered trademark or having no time to apply for trademark.
Many applicants believe that it is the most realistic key to solve the problem of enterprise survival at the beginning of enterprise establishment, and intellectual property rights will be considered after enterprise development. I don't know if I am familiar with it. When I wanted to apply for the registration of the brand I used after the development of the enterprise, I found that the trademark could not be registered, which led to the replacement of the brand recognized by the relevant public for a long time. Even with hundreds of millions of users. Wechat? Others applied for the trademark first, and Tencent won it back with the cooperation of Tencent, the Trademark Office and Qi Xin of the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board? Wechat? Trademark.
Trademark registration is based on the principle of application, supplemented by the principle of use, so the trademark that first applies to the Trademark Office for registration will get a preliminary examination and approval announcement. Applying for a trademark is not expensive, but it can protect enterprises, and enterprises should give priority to intellectual property rights.
2. The contradiction between the salient elements of the trademark and the applicant's hope that the name is simple and easy to remember and easily associate with the content of goods or services.
The most important element of a trademark is distinctiveness. The more it is made, the higher the distinctiveness, so as to distinguish different sources of the same or similar goods. Trademark distinctiveness: (1) means that there is no direct relationship between the trademark and the goods or services designated for use, that is, the function, use, raw materials, quality, price, model and content of the goods cannot be directly expressed, which is the most common problem for applicants, especially e-commerce enterprises. (2) trademarks should not be too simple, such as letters in two common fonts, common geometric patterns and so on. (3) Trademarks should be distinguished from prior trademarks, especially well-known trademarks, and should not imitate plagiarism.
For enterprises, everyone likes the trademark name to be simple and easy to remember, and it can also remind the relevant public of the service content of the trademark. Especially the fast-growing Internet and e-commerce enterprises, they like to use trademark names that lack distinctiveness, such as what do I stand for? Micro group purchase? The same is true, the brand awareness is high, but the road to trademark application will be very difficult.
3. There are many factors in trademark approximate judgment, which are very flexible. Examiners have discretion under the premise of laws, regulations and examination standards.
There are many examiners in the Trademark Office, and their cognitive abilities are different, so they have different opinions on the approximate judgment of trademarks. In addition, trademark review is carried out case by case, and each trademark has its own characteristics. Just because someone else is registered successfully does not mean that they are registered successfully.
For enterprises, I believe that paying the agency fee and finding a lawyer should be successful. Professional attorneys, on the basis of long-term experience in handling cases, tend to be examiners in trademark approximate judgment, but they cannot replace the examiners' examination opinions. Therefore, in the approximate judgment of trademarks, we must not be too arbitrary. We should listen to the opinions of lawyers and weigh the pros and cons. ?
4. The contradiction between the long period of trademark examination and the enterprise's immediate use of the applied trademark.
The examination of trademark substance is a highly professional work, which needs to examine whether the trademark violates the prohibition of law, whether it lacks distinctiveness, whether it is similar to the previous trademark, and even whether it is related to the previous case. Therefore, you can't review the domain name and the registered name of the enterprise first, and then go through the formalities after the approval. Therefore, it takes about nine months for a trademark to be examined by the Trademark Office, and a preliminary examination announcement or rejection result is given.
For enterprises, brands are not planned in advance. They think that time is money and opportunity. In these nine months, they will put the applied trademarks into large-scale use, such as advertising fees, printing and packaging, and production of products. These fees are much higher than the trademark application fee. If the trademark is rejected, it may lead to the waste of the enterprise's early investment. More importantly, the brand strategic planning of enterprises may need to be readjusted.
5. The objective existence and legal procedures of the blind period and objection period of trademark application.
It takes about five months for a trademark to be found in the inquiry system of the Trademark Office website from application to entry into the inquiry system. Therefore, during trademark inquiry, the information of the first five months can't be inquired, which is the so-called inquiry blind period, because there are many similar trademarks in the blind period and they are rejected.
Even if the trademark passes the examination of the Trademark Office and is preliminarily approved and announced, the announcement period is three months, and relevant interested parties may raise objections to the trademark during the announcement period. If the reasons and evidence are sufficient, the announced trademark can still be rejected. This is called the objection period.
This is an objective problem, a legal procedure and a risk that no one can avoid.
Second, in view of the above problems, how to solve the risk problem of trademark application?
1, when naming a trademark, pay attention to the significance, try to be a brand, and first consult a professional lawyer to remind you of the risks.
2. Reserve some trademarks in advance, and use them after successful registration, so as to avoid cramming and put them into use just after applying for trademarks. Alibaba has applied for the registration of more than 5,600 trademarks, and Tencent has more than 6,000 trademarks.
If you need to use a trademark without keeping it, don't pin all your hopes on a trademark application, which is too risky. Try to apply for multiple brands at the same time, nip in the bud and adjust the brands in time.
4. When applying for a trademark, protect the upstream and downstream industries and related industries as much as possible to prevent others from preempting, which is also to prepare for the future cross-industry development of the enterprise.
5. If the trademark is risky and can only be used after the trademark registration is successful, then when using the trademark, we must pay more attention to standardizing and highlighting the use of the trademark and keep the evidence of trademark use. If it is rejected, it can provide a lot of evidence of trademark use through the legal procedure of rejection review, and strive for the success of trademark application.
Trademark application seems to be a trivial matter, but its importance to enterprises requires enterprises and agents to take it seriously, make plans in advance, and minimize the intellectual property risks of enterprises. Trademark application and registration is the lowest cost, but it has far-reaching significance, so it is twice the result with half the effort to grasp the problem of trademark application from the source. The above suggestions are for enterprises' reference, hoping to bring some help to entrepreneurs.