Not long ago, the Trademark Office of the State Intellectual Property Office (hereinafter referred to as the Trademark Office) issued the "Announcement of the Trademark Office on Soliciting Opinions on Revision of the Trademark Law" to solicit opinions from the public. The author recently studied the "No. 19066882 'Shanghai Life Insurance Co., Ltd. and Figure' Trademark Rejection Review Case" in the "20 Typical Cases of Trademark Review in 2017" published by the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board (hereinafter referred to as the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board). The issue of whether the full name can be registered and used as a trademark has been considered, and it is believed that in the revision of the Trademark Law, the full name of the company should be considered to be included in the category of signs that cannot be used as trademarks.

Not long ago, the Trademark Office of the State Intellectual Property Office (hereinafter referred to as the Trademark Office) issued the "Announcement of the Trademark Office on Soliciting Opinions on Revision of the Trademark Law" to solicit opinions from the public. The author recently studied the "No. 19066882 'Shanghai Life Insurance Co., Ltd. and Figure' Trademark Rejection Review Case" in the "20 Typical Cases of Trademark Review in 2017" published by the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board (hereinafter referred to as the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board). The issue of whether the full name can be registered and used as a trademark has been considered, and it is believed that in the revision of the Trademark Law, the full name of the company should be considered to be included in the category of signs that cannot be used as trademarks.

The trademark No. 19066882 "Shanghai Life Insurance Co., Ltd. and its image" (hereinafter referred to as the disputed trademark) was filed for registration by Shanghai Life Insurance Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Shanghai Life Insurance Company) in February 2016. Application, designated for use in Class 36 services such as accident insurance coverage. After review, the Trademark Office rejected the application for registration of the disputed trademark. Shanghai Life Insurance Company was dissatisfied and subsequently submitted a review to the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board. After review, the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board held that the trademark in dispute was registered for use in designated services such as insurance brokerage and insurance underwriting, and it was difficult for consumers to identify it as a mark indicating the source of the service. It lacked the distinctive features that a trademark should have and fell within the scope of my country’s trademark law. refers to a sign that cannot be used as a registered trademark, and the evidence on record is insufficient to prove that the disputed trademark has acquired the distinctive features that a trademark should have after use. Based on this, it was decided to reject the application for registration of the disputed trademark.

In recent years, many companies have tried to register their full names as trademarks for various reasons, which has triggered some trademark disputes and lawsuits. In these disputes and lawsuits, some people believe that the primary function and important feature of a trademark is to indicate the source of goods, and the full name of a company exactly conveys the identity information of the manufacturer, which is obviously better than other forms of trademarks in indicating the source of goods; the full name of the company It consists of four parts: administrative division, trade name, industry or business characteristics, and organizational form. Generally speaking, the three parts of administrative division, industry or business characteristics, and organizational form have no significant features, but the trade name is usually easy to identify, so the full name of the company On the whole, it still has distinctive features and thus has the basis for registration as a trademark.

For the above point of view, the author believes that it is debatable, because the distinctive features of a certain logo that is easy to identify are only a necessary condition for a registered trademark, but not a sufficient condition. Therefore, the distinctiveness of the full name of the company does not necessarily make it a registered trademark. It can be registered as a trademark.

In addition to the distinctive features that are easily identifiable, what conditions must be met for a trademark to be approved for registration?

The distinctive features of a trademark, in addition to the logo itself, must have a minimum level of recognition, that is, be easily identifiable. In addition to identification, it also needs to be easy for consumers to identify. The distinctive features of a trademark include two meanings: first, when people see a certain logo on the product, they can realize that it is a trademark indicating the source of the product; second, after realizing that it is a trademark, it can further distinguish it from similar products or products. other trademarks of the service. It can be seen that the easy recognition of the logo only meets the second requirement of distinctive features, that is, the visual difference effect, but it may not meet the first requirement, that is, it may psychologically remind consumers that this is a trademark. Since the essence of a trademark is to prevent confusion among consumers and indicate the source of goods, when a commercial logo cannot be regarded as a trademark by consumers, it naturally does not meet the distinctive features conditions for trademark registration.

For example, a company once applied to register the shape of a certain ice cream as a three-dimensional trademark. The ice cream was in the shape of a cuboid with wavy patterns on the sides and top. The applicant believed that the shape had distinctive features and originality. The designed shape has artistic beauty. However, the Trademark Office, the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board and the court all disagreed with this, believing that because ordinary consumers can easily recognize this shape as a common shape of ice cream, the shape cannot play a role in distinguishing the source of the goods and therefore does not have distinctive features.

It can be seen that when consumers find it difficult to regard a commercial logo as a trademark, the logo cannot function and therefore lacks distinctive features. The reason is that due to long-term consumption habits, consumers are accustomed to the separation of trademarks and goods themselves. For situations where the trademark and the shape of the goods themselves are inseparable, it is generally impossible to recognize that the shape of the goods also represents the trademark.

As for the full name of the company, according to the psychology of ordinary consumers, it is generally difficult to realize that the manufacturer name of a product is also the registered trademark of the product. Because for general products, there must be the full name of the manufacturer, but not every product will have a registered trademark. As mentioned above, if a trademark prevents consumers from psychologically recognizing it as a trademark, even if the basic conditions are met at the physical level, it will be difficult to obtain sufficient conditions for trademark registration.

In the current consumer market environment, since the phenomenon of registering a company's full name as a trademark has not become mainstream, and it is far from changing the general perception of consumers, from the perspective of consumer perception For consideration, the full name of the company should not be registered as a trademark. In addition, if the full name of the company is registered as a trademark, once the full name of the company is changed, or the trademark is licensed or transferred to others, the trademark will inevitably be inconsistent with the name of its owner and user, which will lead to misunderstanding by consumers. . To sum up, registering a company name as a trademark is not helpful in strengthening consumers’ sense of trademark identity. Instead, it may lead to misunderstandings, confusion, and other situations that disrupt the order of product operations. Based on this, the author recommends that in this revision of the Trademark Law, the full name of the company be included in the scope of signs that cannot be used as trademarks, so as to avoid the recurrence of this dispute and reduce unnecessary waste of administrative and judicial resources. Disclaimer: 1. Some of the text and pictures in the article are from the Internet. If you have any questions, please contact us in time. 2. Due to editing needs, there is no necessary connection between the text and the picture, and they are for reference only. The copyright of all reprinted articles, pictures, audio and video files and other materials belongs to the copyright owner. 3. If the content of this article inadvertently infringes upon the intellectual property rights of the media or individuals, please contact us to delete it immediately.