According to the provisions of the 2010 Patent Examination Guidelines,

If a design patent right is found to conflict with the legal rights obtained by others before the filing date, the design patent shall be declared Design patent rights are invalid.

“Acquired before the filing date” means that the prior legal right was acquired before the filing date of the patent involved.

That is to say, a conflict will only occur if the “acquisition date” of the trademark right is before the “application date” of the patent; otherwise, the authorization of the design patent will not be affected.

If a trademark is still in the application stage and we don’t know whether it can be authorized, it cannot constitute a conflict of rights.