Legal subjectivity:

The role of trademark inquiry: 1. To identify obstacles to registration. As a preparatory work before submitting a trademark registration application, trademark search is often very necessary, especially when the trademark to be applied for registration is very important to the applicant, the applicant hopes to increase the success rate of registration, or the trademark itself has poor originality. If a trademark with graphics, text or pure text representing common things has fewer words and is more likely to have been registered and applied for before, a trademark search can enable the applicant to have an idea of ??whether the trademark can be registered relatively smoothly. If the query results show that there is no identical or similar trademark that has been registered or applied for on the same or similar goods, then it is highly likely that the trademark being queried will eventually be registered. If an identical or similar previously registered or previously applied trademark is found, the applicant must face the choice of whether to still apply for registration of the trademark in question, change the course, modify the trademark or adjust the products, or simply start a new one , or even give up on submitting the application; to be on the safe side, you can also prepare one or several contingency trademarks, and while striving to register the main target trademark, submit several backup trademarks. Once the main trademark is refused registration, other trademarks will still have the opportunity to be registered. and put it into use. 2. Find out whether the trademark can be used safely. In most countries, the examiner needs to conduct a substantive examination of the trademark application, so it takes more than two years from the date of submission of the trademark application to the final registration of the trademark, and even as long as six or seven years in some countries. During the lengthy application process, applicants often do not dare to use their trademarks with confidence because they are not sure whether their trademarks will eventually be registered. If you use it rashly without checking, there may be two unfavorable situations: first, it will cause infringement of other people's trademarks; second, you will give up the use of the trademark because it cannot be registered in the end, which will destroy the investment in trademark promotion expenses and the established business. Reputation turned into nothing. Therefore, if a trademark owner is eager to use its trademark, it is very necessary to conduct a trademark search before use. 3. Discovering trademark squatting. Trademark squatting is a common phenomenon. If a trademark has a certain popularity and the product sales are good, it is very likely that other people will register it in their own name first. There are usually three types of squatters: one is the trademark owner’s partners, such as sales agents. Their purpose is often to obtain or consolidate their exclusive agent status, or to ask for high transfer fees from the registered trademark; the second category is "free riders" who attempt to take advantage of the goodwill of the registered trademark and intentionally Those who cause consumers to misunderstand and obtain improper benefits are usually producers and operators of similar products. The third is trademark brokers, who register other people's trademarks solely for the purpose of defrauding the registered person of trademark transfer fees or licensing fees, while the person who squatted has no intention of using the registered trademark. The latter type of person often takes the initiative after squatting and blackmails the person being registered at the appropriate time in order to extort transfer fees or licensing fees. The first two types of people tend to stand still after registering, and are not in a hurry or even deliberately avoid exposing the fact of their preemptive registration. Therefore, conducting trademark inquiries as early as possible is of great significance for discovering trademark squatting and mitigating, avoiding and recovering losses. If you find out through inquiry that a preemptively registered trademark is still in the application stage and has not yet been registered, you can promptly file an objection during the opposition announcement period. Otherwise, it will be much more troublesome to apply for cancellation of a registered trademark after registration. Therefore, conducting trademark searches in countries where the trademark has been used or planned to be used is very important to promptly discover trademark squatting and take measures to prevent, stop or even recapture the squatted trademark. 4. Understand the application progress. In most countries, after a trademark application is deemed registrable by the examining officer after substantive examination, the examining officer will issue an approval notice informing that the trademark application has been accepted for registration and will be published in the opposition notice. However, there are some countries where the examiner does not issue an approval notice after a trademark application passes substantive examination. In this case, conducting a trademark search may be an effective way to understand the progress of the application. If a trademark application has been approved for registration by the trademark examiner and scheduled for publication, you can find out the time of publication through a search. Article 34 of the "Trademark Law of the People's Republic of China" stipulates that the Trademark Office shall notify the trademark registration applicant in writing for a trademark that rejects the application and refuses to be announced. If the trademark registration applicant is dissatisfied, he may apply to the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board for review within fifteen days from the date of receipt of the notice. The Trademark Review and Adjudication Board shall make a decision within nine months from the date of receipt of the application and notify the applicant in writing.

If there are special circumstances that require an extension, it can be extended for three months with the approval of the industrial and commercial administration department of the State Council. If the party concerned is dissatisfied with the decision of the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board, it may file a lawsuit with the People's Court within thirty days from the date of receipt of the notice. Article 35 If an objection is raised against a trademark that has been initially approved and announced, the Trademark Office shall listen to the facts and reasons stated by the opponent and the opposed party, and after investigation and verification, make a decision within twelve months from the expiration of the announcement period. The decision to approve registration shall be made and the opponent and the objected party shall be notified in writing. If there are special circumstances that require an extension, it can be extended for six months with the approval of the industrial and commercial administration department of the State Council. If the Trademark Office makes a decision to approve registration, it will issue a trademark registration certificate and make an announcement. If the opponent is dissatisfied, he may request the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board to declare the registered trademark invalid in accordance with the provisions of Articles 44 and 45 of this Law. If the Trademark Office makes a decision not to register and the opponent is dissatisfied, he or she may apply to the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board for review within fifteen days from the date of receipt of the notice. The Trademark Review and Adjudication Board shall make a review decision within twelve months from the date of receipt of the application, and notify the opponent and the opposed party in writing. If there are special circumstances that require an extension, it can be extended for six months with the approval of the industrial and commercial administration department of the State Council. If the opposed party is dissatisfied with the decision of the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board, it may file a lawsuit with the People's Court within thirty days from the date of receipt of the notice. The people's court shall notify the opponent to participate in the litigation as a third party. During the review process in accordance with the provisions of the preceding paragraph, the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board may suspend the review if the determination of the prior rights involved must be based on the results of another case that is being heard by the people's court or is being handled by the administrative agency. After the reasons for the suspension are eliminated, the review process should be resumed. Legal objectivity:

Before registering a trademark, compare the trademark to be registered with the trademark that has been registered or announced or has been accepted by the Trademark Office to determine whether the trademark is similar or identical to this trademark. There are two ways to inquire about trademarks: one is to go to the China Trademark Network to inquire about trademarks; the other is to find a trademark agent online to inquire about trademarks; trademark inquiry means that the trademark registration applicant personally or entrusts a trademark agent to go to the trademark registration authority to inquire about the relevant trademark registration. The procedure is to understand whether the trademark you are applying for registration is the same as or similar to the trademark that has been registered or is being registered by others. Pre-application inquiry is an important step in applying for trademark registration. Although the inquiry results do not have legal effect, it can enable trademark registration applicants to be aware of the situation, reduce blindness, and reduce trademark registration risks, thus greatly reducing expenses. At the same time, strive for more application time. Trademark search can only search for trademark information that has been entered into the database, so there is a blank period, or a blind spot. Generally, a similar trademark search is done 4 to 6 months after the trademark application to enhance the success rate of trademark registration. Article 28 of my country's Trademark Law stipulates that if a trademark applied for registration does not comply with the relevant provisions of this Law or is identical or similar to a trademark that has been registered or preliminarily approved by others on the same or similar goods, the trademark shall be replaced by a trademark. The Bureau rejected the application and did not make an announcement. Therefore, an inquiry should be made before applying, so that the trademark can obtain a trademark certificate to the greatest extent possible. At the same time, it generally takes nearly a year for a registered trademark to be accepted by the Trademark Office and announced. If the registered trademark is rejected without inquiry, , not only wasting money, but more importantly, wasting time and delaying the use of the trademark.