● Obtaining a trademark may go through the steps of application, examination, preliminary examination and announcement, objection, approval and registration announcement.
● By the end of 2009, the period of trademark registration review is expected to be shortened to 19 months.
According to the current registration review cycle, it takes about 30 months for a trademark to apply to the Trademark Office of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce and make a preliminary examination and approval announcement, eliminating all kinds of uncertainties.
Trademark is a kind of intellectual property, which is exclusive.
The acquisition of trademark rights can go through the following steps: application, examination, preliminary examination and announcement, objection, approval and registration announcement. But every period of time is not fixed.
In the first step, the applicant files an application, and the Trademark Office will give priority to the applications in the queue in chronological order. There is a concept called "priority", which means to file the same trademark application in China within 6 months after the first application abroad. According to the Paris Convention, China's trademark administration department will regard the time of applying abroad as the time of applying at home. Therefore, if an enterprise has applied for trademark registration in other member countries of the Paris Convention, it should seize the time to apply in China to obtain the above priority.
The second step is for the examiner to conduct a formal substantive examination. The contents of formal examination include whether the application procedures are complete, whether the application documents are filled in as required, and payment. As long as all the conditions are met, the Trademark Office will issue a notice of acceptance. Examiners set Chinese characters, English, numbers, prefixes and graphic elements according to the different compositions of trademarks, laying a good foundation for substantive examination. Then the trademark applied by the enterprise or individual will enter the substantive examination procedure. Firstly, according to the category, the applied trademark is assigned to each office, and the director assigns tasks to the examiner. The specific process is reviewed by the examiner and then by the director. There are two results of substantive examination: preliminary examination, rejection or partial rejection. The trademark preliminarily examined by the Trademark Office should be published in the trademark announcement, but it takes a certain time from the expected announcement to the announcement, and it takes about two months from the date of examination to the announcement, which is not easy to save.
The third step is to issue a preliminary examination and approval announcement and set a three-month objection period according to law. If there is no objection, registration can be approved, and registration will be queued until the date of approval announcement. However, during the objection period, even on the last day, it will take some time to deal with the objection and see if it can be registered. When issuing the registration certificate, the Trademark Office must make sure that there is no objection before issuing the registration certificate to the applicant.
Therefore, the review period of trademark registration is uncertain, and all possible situations must be arranged. For example, if the application procedures are basically complete or the application documents basically meet the requirements, but need to be corrected, the Trademark Office will notify the applicant in writing to make corrections, which will take some time.
It should be pointed out that during the period from filing a trademark application to obtaining registration, enterprises can use the trademark, but there is considerable risk, because the trademark may conflict with the trademark previously applied or registered by others, thus causing infringement disputes. This is also the reason why the Trademark Office of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, enterprises applying for trademarks, academic experts and natural persons all urgently demand to speed up the period of trademark examination and registration.