How to establish a company's trademark management system is a topic worthy of permanent discussion. This article discusses the insights from the work (mainly from the management of trademark use evidence) as follows to serve as a starting point.

1. The Importance of Trademark Management

Company legal affairs are crucial to the prevention and control of legal risks for the entire company. In terms of company trademark management, the establishment of a trademark management system by the company's legal department can better ensure the operation and institutional effects of trademark management work. A good trademark management system can better cooperate with the work of external agencies and provide the external agencies with the greatest support in restoring facts. Then, combined with the company's actual situation and the rich experience of the external agencies (registration, review, litigation, etc.), it will ultimately be beneficial to The greatest success in trademark cases.

2. Trademark Management System

(1) Clarify the trademark status of itself and its competitors, and formulate a system framework

Company legal affairs can provide significant support for the company’s brand effect. The company's market share needs to be promoted and analyzed by the marketing department, while preventing confusion and creating a one-to-one correspondence between trademarks and the company's goods or services requires legal affairs to maintain trademarks and use trademarks to maintain and consolidate market positions.

1. Understand the trademark situation (business status) of competitors based on trademark testing

Trademarks are signs used by market entities to produce goods or provide goods and services. The number of trademarks and application status (defense, alliance, rejection, etc.) reflect the company capabilities and development of market entities to a certain extent.

Trademark testing is mainly to prevent similar trademarks from being registered. At the same time, more and more companies use trademark testing as one of the ways to understand their competitors. For example: Check the company name of the competitor on the enterprise information network (as many clues as possible to ensure the integrity of the trademark information), check the trademark registration status of the competitor on the trademark website, and the trademark registration status needs to be checked by an experienced trademark owner. Let the agency analyze it, so that you can know the other party's development direction and speed (except for applications using other affiliated companies).

2. Develop a trademark management system framework based on your existing trademark situation and the situation of your competitors

The size and width of the management system framework need to be determined according to the company's situation. For example, if a company has a certain reputation, in order to prevent it from being copied by famous brands (this is more important than developing new products), it needs to apply for trademarks across categories. Furthermore, the company will carry out trademark layout based on the original trademarks, including series of trademark applications. Domestic Foreign trademark applications, the correlation and echo between various sub-brands, etc., also include occupying emerging areas of the industry, especially scarce resources, "every inch of land must be fought for".

(2) Trademark application for trademark management system (including renewal)

Trademark management depends on the development speed and scale of the company. If it is a small company and develops slowly, in the core Category registration is enough. For large companies, especially companies that develop across industries, it is better to apply for all categories in a timely manner when they are well-known.

Since mainland laws are less favorable for the protection of unregistered trademarks than registered trademarks, it is particularly important for companies to register trademarks when launching brands. Under the registration system, the application date must be determined first (only if the evidence of prior use is sufficient) Yes) Guaranteed registration success rate. As a member of the company, the company's legal affairs department has a better understanding of the company's business scope, and can more accurately select the trademark category when applying for a trademark, while increasing the registrability of the trademark. Complete trademark applications, obtain exclusive rights to the company's core trademarks, and conduct defensive registration and joint registration at the same time. Eventually, a pattern was formed in which the core trademark was wrapped with similar trademarks and similar products, effectively protecting the core trademark and at the same time storing the trademark for the company's future product series.

Of course, the disadvantage is that large-scale trademark applications will increase costs, and some trademarks that are not used in time will be withdrawn (although the earlier application time is retained in time, the cost is also very high). The specific number of applications depends on the company's development level, and the specific development level requires legal and product research and development personnel to determine the specific situation.

(3) What about opposition, withdrawal and invalidation of trademark management system?

1. In daily trademark testing, similar trademarks shall be subject to Article 30 of the Trademark Law , Article 31 of the objection, and eliminate the impact of similar trademarks on the company's brand as soon as possible. Series trademark objections also provide case support for future trademark applications and objections (although there is a trademark case review principle, series objections can be used as part of the argument).

2. After the revision of the Trademark Law, the case of cancellation of third party trademarks was taken seriously. The company tried to withdraw third party trademarks with prior obstruction. If the other party did not have enough evidence of use, the trademark with prior obstruction would be removed.

3. Declaration of invalidity. After the implementation of the new Trademark Law, a trademark registration certificate will be issued directly after the opposition procedure is approved for registration. There will be no subsequent review and litigation procedures, so it can only be declared invalid. However, it is not good for the company's brand protection. After all, it is a trademark that has been successfully registered. Before it is invalidated, normal rights can be exercised, which will affect the company's interests.

(4) Trademark transfer and other aspects of the trademark management system

Some trademarks that cannot be opposed may be purchased. Trademark transfer requires trademark investigation, and similar trademarks need to be transferred together. At the same time, pay attention to the transferee's use evidence (documents or statements related to past use) to prevent the transferred trademark from having rights defects.

Other trademark pledges will be discussed later.

(5) Trademark use management of the trademark management system (including licensed use)

Successful trademark registration is only one step. The use of the trademark is the core of the trademark. The next evidence of trademark use will be High frequency becomes the object of reference in possible lawsuits. Sufficient evidence of trademark use can not only avoid withdrawal, but more importantly, it can be used as strong evidence to identify similar trademarks and declare well-known trademarks.

1. Establish a trademark use file, which is enough to form a complete chain of evidence, restore the marketing situation, and present the market visibility;

2. Pay attention to the printing of trademark logos. According to the "Trademark Printing "Regulations on the Management of Trademarks" to manage trademark printing and retain printing evidence;

3. Pay attention to the promotion of marketing department activities, and retain some objective and neutral evidence for each event promotion for backup;

4. Pay attention to company employee training, explain the basic knowledge of trademark use, establish a "Trademark Management System", and improve company employees' understanding of trademarks;

5. For affiliated companies or chain enterprises , destroy or take back unused trademark materials in a timely manner.

(6) Complaints about trademark infringement in the trademark management system

Complaints about trademark infringement mainly refer to different choices using the time and methods of industrial and commercial and court processing. For example: at the same time, the infringing party will be encircled and suppressed based on the trademark registration status (such as separate litigation for the 35 categories of chain enterprises and other trademarks related to core trademarks).

3. Conclusion

The revision of the Company Law has lowered the threshold for company registration. The government advocates "mass innovation and entrepreneurship". Market entities are rapidly expanding in response to the times. Company trademarks The management system protects the company's core competitiveness and protects the company's goodwill.

According to recent reports, a certain brand’s trademark was being sold, and a few years ago there were reports suggesting that the company should pay attention to issues such as cross-class registration and trademark objections. All we can say is the company’s trademark path Still very long?