Enterprises need to provide their own English translators to ensure that the information of registrants is consistent with that of users. Especially when applying for a trademark in the same country, you must accurately inform the English name and address of the former trademark applicant and the English name and address to be adopted now.
Except Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, the official language of other countries is not Chinese, so the translation of the applicant's name and address is inevitable. In general, enterprises need to provide their own English translators to ensure that the information of registrants is consistent with that of users. Especially when applying for a trademark in the same country, you must accurately inform the English name and address of the previous trademark registration applicant and the English name and address to be adopted now. Otherwise, if there is a trademark prior examination system in the applicant country, and the two trademarks applied by the company before and after are similar, but the names and/or addresses of the applicants are not exactly the same, the trademark administration authorities of the country are likely to think that the two similar trademarks applied by the company before and after belong to different owners, thus issuing a notice of rejection. At this time, the company should not only submit the application for change as soon as possible, unify the names and addresses of the two trademark owners, but also apply for rejection of the review within the prescribed time limit, and explain the situation to the trademark management agencies in relevant countries. This will result in two costs: the cost of changing the name and/or address of the trademark owner and the cost of responding to the review comments. And the time for trademark registration will be delayed. In fact, if the company can inform the trademark owner who applied earlier in China before applying for the latter trademark, and the English name and address of the trademark owner who applied later are the same as those of the trademark owner who applied earlier, the above problems will not occur.
Enterprises should provide standardized trademark pattern formats.
In addition, as the carrier of trademark rights, trademark patterns need to meet the specific requirements of the government. When applying for foreign-related trademarks, the format of trademark patterns provided by enterprises is often irregular. Both word mark and graphic trademarks should be clear enough. In many years of agency work, the author found that many enterprises did not provide a separate trademark pattern or provided a small trademark pattern format when instructing agencies to apply for trademarks. Once enlarged, it will become vague and cannot meet the requirements of foreign-related trademark applications.
As a brand symbol, trademarks can arouse people's association with brands, especially consumers' association with product attributes. Enterprises should prepare a well-designed trademark pattern, which can not only meet the requirements of trademark application, but also be widely used in shops, letterheads, websites, advertisements, manuals, contracts, invoices, products and product packaging, and mark the company name. In the event of infringement in the future, all documents (including but not limited to sales documents, contracts and licensing agreements), packaging, products and storefronts with trademark patterns and company names can be used as evidence to safeguard their trademark rights. It should be noted that trademark rights are regional, and the evidence used in China cannot be used as evidence to safeguard trademark rights in other countries. Conditional enterprises can consider adding an English page on the enterprise website to introduce the company and its products. It is best to have the company's brand logo and English name on every page. This can not only facilitate enterprises to promote products to foreign customers, but also facilitate foreign customers to cross language barriers and understand enterprise products. It is worth mentioning that when a trademark is infringed, revoked or needs to submit evidence of use abroad, the English website of the enterprise to which the relevant trademark belongs can also be used as evidence of the trademark's use abroad.
Enterprises engaged in manufacturing generally only choose the commodity categories related to the actual products to apply when choosing the guarantee categories, and actually need to choose related service items.
As the scope of trademark rights, commodities also need the applicant's special attention. At present, the international Nice classification table is divided into two parts: goods (1~34) and services (35~45). Enterprises engaged in manufacturing generally only choose the commodity categories related to the actual products to apply when choosing the guarantee categories, and actually need to choose related service items. For example, it is far from enough for automobile manufacturers to choose only 12 cars and other commodities, and they should also choose 37 kinds of automobile-related services such as automobile maintenance and tire retreading. Conditional automobile enterprises can also choose goods related to automobiles or their parts in categories 07 and 09 for extended registration protection. Trademarks in most countries in the world are protected according to the category and relevance of designated goods/services. There are few countries that protect commodities in groups, only Chinese mainland and Taiwan Province Province are common, but Chinese mainland and Taiwan Province Province have different groups. There are also some countries that don't distinguish categories at all, such as Canada.
In the application for foreign-related trademarks, when choosing specific goods/services, please try to choose the standard goods/services listed in the Nice classification table, and try not to choose those with? c？ China's unique goods/services. Because non-standard goods/services can't be generally accepted by other countries, it is very likely that the trademark management agencies of various countries will issue review opinions, resulting in the cost of replying to the review opinions and delaying the registration time. If the main products/services of the enterprise cannot be found in the standard goods/services in the Nice classification table, it is best to negotiate with the agent, choose a more acceptable name of the goods/services in the applicant country and try to submit it.
If a trademark is successfully registered, it must be used in time in the country of registration. What is this? Timely? And then what? According to the provisions in the Agreement on Trade-related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPSw), if it is necessary to use a trademark in order to maintain registration, the registration can only be cancelled after it has not been used for at least three consecutive years, unless the trademark owner proves that the obstacles to the use of the trademark are justified. ? In practice, countries all over the world generally stipulate that a registered trademark can be revoked if it is not used for three to five years in a row. Therefore, after trademark registration, we must actively use it and keep as much evidence as possible. Maximizing the use of registered trademarks is the best protection for trademarks.