With the high number of trademark registration applications in my country, it has become increasingly difficult to create creative trademarks by combining words in the limited Chinese character vocabulary. Therefore, many operators have begun to try to combine fashionable and popular elements. Combined with trademark elements, the text is designed in an unconventional way, and "creative Chinese characters" full of design are used to apply for a registered trademark to highlight the unique creativity and personality of the trademark.

Therefore, in our daily life, such as eating, shopping, watching movies, shopping and leisure entertainment, we see some word trademarks or signboards that are so specious that people can’t name them.

Is it feasible for an applicant to find a new way to apply for a trademark using his or her own words?

For this issue, Chinese characters should be distinguished from English characters, and the definition of word trademarks should also be clear. The characters used in word trademarks include Chinese characters, Chinese pinyin letters, Chinese minority characters and foreign characters.

Word trademarks can be written in any style, including regular script, running script, cursive script, official script, seal script, horizontal script, straight script, artistic script, printed script, and variations. However, it is necessary to highlight the characteristics of the word mark that is easy to recognize, remember, and call, and strive to make consumers understand their meaning when they see it.

Can I apply for a trademark for my own Chinese characters?

Some applicants know that when designing a trademark, if the font design of Chinese characters is different from other designs, it can be approved. However, if it is too exaggerated, it may even reach the point of "irregular Chinese characters" To the extent that most of them will be rejected. There are mainly the following situations:

1. The text is missing and only contains part of the text itself, resulting in irregular use, which may easily cause consumers to misunderstand the writing and produce adverse social impacts. For example, the applicant's trademark is "", and the standard Chinese characters for the trademark should be: "和茶里";

2. Contains self-made characters, resulting in irregular use and easy for consumers to misunderstand the writing. Known and have adverse social impact, such as; the applicant's trademark is "", the standard Chinese character for the trademark should be "Study Abroad";

3. The text lacks strokes, resulting in irregular use and easy for consumers to misunderstand Writing that causes misunderstanding and adverse social impact, for example: the applicant’s trademark is “”, and the standard Chinese character for the trademark should be “Shangqing Zhenzhan”.

This is because the use of such non-standard Chinese characters as registered trademarks is likely to have adverse social impacts, and has constituted a situation stipulated in Article 10, Paragraph 1, Item (8) of the Trademark Law. This is an exception. In order to protect my country's Chinese character writing culture, this provision has almost the same purpose as the trademark review provisions for idioms.

Article 10, Paragraph 8 of the "Trademark Law" stipulates: Logos that are harmful to socialist morals or have other adverse effects shall not be used as trademarks.

A typical case is that Alibaba applied to register the "Fu" trademark No. 22075541, but it was rejected. Judging from the trademark legend, this character is somewhat similar to the character "福" but different from the character "福". It is a self-created variation.

Therefore, self-created Chinese characters do not comply with the provisions of the Trademark Law. It is recommended that applicants do not use self-created Chinese characters, but they can stylize Chinese characters in artistic expression, but it is best not to be too exaggerated. Otherwise, it may be rejected by the examiner as "irregular Chinese characters".

Can I apply for a trademark for my own English words/words?

English words are composed of English letters. On this basis, fictional English words can be applied for trademarks.

If a word with a clear meaning is registered as an English trademark, the likelihood of rejection is high, but if you create or fabricate an English word, the possibility of passing the review is very high. Fictitious trademarks have no meaning and are highly distinctive, so they can generally be registered.

The editor hereby provides the following suggestions to our applicants when designing trademarks:

1. When the applicant applies for registration of a Chinese trademark, if it is displayed in standard fonts , should try to avoid using irregular Chinese characters such as typos or self-made characters; at the same time, the use of more common fonts must avoid conflicts with their copyright rights;

2. When applying for registration of a Chinese trademark, the applicant If it is presented in the form of artistic design, the designed standard samples need to be reviewed, and try to avoid changing the writing strokes and structure of the Chinese characters themselves, and do not let them completely break away from the writing method of the Chinese characters themselves. If the applicant wants to use non-standard Chinese characters If the application is applied in the form of a graphic form, then Biaomei believes that the entire design can be presented in a graphic form, thereby avoiding the risk of rejecting the application on the grounds of "irregular use of Chinese characters".

3. When an applicant applies to register a Chinese trademark, and the trademark sample contains traditional Chinese characters or rare characters, due to the limited information available to the examiner personally, the applicant should also submit the trademark application. Standard writing, pronunciation, origin of writing and other information to avoid corrections or rejections and delay in obtaining rights.