Trademarks protect the legitimate rights and interests of merchants, so you must register your trademark when opening a store. However, many friends are often rejected when registering trademarks. So what are the types and reasons for trademark registration rejections and how to deal with trademark registration rejections? The following will answer your questions:

1. Types of Trademark Rejection

Types of Trademark Rejection: Rejection is a common review result during the trademark registration application process. There are two ways: There are two types: "Total rejection" and "Partial rejection".

1. Rejection of all: refers to rejection of all goods or services of the entire trademark.

2. Partial rejection: refers to the rejection of some items of goods or services.

2. Reasons for trademark rejection:

1. Based on absolute reasons - rejected due to the trademark itself

2. Based on relative reasons - due to the It was rejected due to conflict of prior rights, whether the earlier trademark was registered or otherwise.

The circumstances for rejection due to "absolute grounds" are as follows:

(1) Generic names will never be protected by trademarks. For example, the word "mobile phone" cannot be registered as a mobile phone trademark;

(2) Lack of distinctiveness. In this case, there is no way to distinguish the products of one business from another and therefore cannot be registered unless you can prove that they have acquired a secondary meaning.

The following signs are usually not distinctive:

1) Descriptive words or signs;

2) Geographic words or signs; for example, for In the case of a Belgian band, "Belgian band" is a geographically descriptive term and therefore not distinctive, and other music producers in that country should be able to use the term "Belgian" to describe the origin of their products.

3) Advertising slogans, if they consist of descriptive and non-distinctive elements and the source cannot be identified. It is often difficult for slogans to acquire distinctiveness and then be registered as trademarks because their function is mainly to convey and promote information about a company and its products. Advertising slogans applied for registration as trademarks are often rejected due to lack of distinctiveness. For example, an advertising slogan for decorative fabrics "No one knows colors better than us" is likely to be refused registration because it is just a reference to product features. A widely used complimentary statement that can be freely used by other companies in the same industry. It should be noted that some countries prohibit the registration of advertising slogans as trademarks.

(3) A trademark consisting of a person’s name. In some countries, this is an absolute ground for rejection of the application. In most other countries, if the mark is primarily a surname, this is only a relative ground for rejection, i.e. the use of one's own name is treated the same as an ordinary word mark. However, in some countries, a surname can be registered as a trademark if it acquires a secondary meaning. In most countries, the name of a natural person, a legal person, or even a pseudonym can be registered as a trademark.

Rejection due to "relative reasons" mainly refers to the situation where the trademark applied for registration conflicts with prior rights.

Having two identical or very similar trademarks on the same product category will confuse consumers. The trademark offices of some countries will review whether the applied trademark conflicts with existing trademarks (including unregistered trademarks and well-known trademarks) as a routine step in the registration review, while the trademark offices of other countries will review the trademark registration after the announcement. A relative grounds review is conducted only when an objection is filed. But in either case, if your trademark is considered to be identical or confusingly similar to someone else’s existing trademark on the same or similar goods, your trademark registration application will be rejected or cancelled.

Finally, in many countries, your trademark may also be refused registration if it conflicts with other prior rights, such as industrial designs, copyrights, personal names/company names/trade names, trade names, etc. Names, geographical indications or Aboriginal identification, etc.

3. How to handle trademark registration rejection?

1. Trademark review

If the applied trademark is the same as the company's trade name, then the company's registration time is earlier than the registration time of the cited trademark. Relevant evidence can be provided for legal review. deal with. Many people believe that if a trademark is rejected, the trademark cannot be successfully registered. However, many trademarks are also obtained after trademark review. This means that there are certain difficulties in trademark rejection review, but there is still hope for success.

2. Partial review of trademarks

If the applied trademark is similar to multiple similar trademarks, you can choose to abandon the same or similar partial categories and then go for reexamination. The probability of passing will be higher. a lot of.

3. Trademark division review

If some similar groups can be registered among all the similar groups applying for a trademark, you can first register some similar groups to obtain use. permissions, and then choose an appropriate method to review the rejection of similar groups.

4. Trademark application for withdrawal review

This method is applicable to the situation where the citing trademark has been applied for for three years. If the citing trademark has been registered for three years, the other party can withdraw the application for three years. Submit an application for withdrawal of the third category and a review application at the same time according to the category used, or submit an application for withdrawal of the third category first and submit a review application before the review deadline.

If the owner of the cited trademark has bad faith in plagiarizing the applicant's prior trademark, he may file an objection or invalidation application against the cited trademark and submit a rejection review application at the same time.

The above are the types, reasons and methods of trademark registration rejection? answer. How long does it take to review a trademark rejection and what is the process? If your trademark application has been rejected, you can refer to the information compiled above on intellectual property rights for review. If you have other questions, you can consult a professional intellectual property consultant for more details.