Trademark Laws in China

972 Words2 Pages

Under the worldwide financial environment, China is considered as a big market for every international corporation. When a brand wants to enter China, can its trademark be protected in the potential market? For instance, CarMan, a registered German trademark, is famous in Euro after using for several years. Now, CarMan is eager to enter China’s market, but there is a same trademark has been registered and used in the same goods as CarMan. The following part is trying to solve disputes arose from the situations like CarMan. I. Trademark Law in China A. Development of Trademark Law After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, legislation of Trademark Law of People’s Republic of China (collectively “Trademark Law”) has gone through significant changes to reach the present framework. The regulations promulgated in 1963 amended the previous version, which linked trademark use with product quality control. The modern trade mark regime which has emerged in China began with the introduction of a new trademark law in 1982. This was the most comprehensive to date and served to accommodate many concerns of China’s new foreign investors. In 1993, the Trademark Law was amended. The latest amendment happened in 2013 which added more strict judgment standard of bad faith registration and specific rules of the process to define well-known marks. This amendment will be effective in May.1 2014. B. Statutory/code enacted to conform to Paris Convention China provides special protection to well-known mark after becoming a member of Paris Convention in 1984. With respect to Paris Convention article 6bis, prohibiting to use and register other’s well-known mark, time period to do so and bad faith are taken into consideration. China’s st... ... middle of paper ... ...rMan, may have obtained great reputation around its fans in China. However, under current Trademark Law in China, it’s difficult for CarMan get special well-known marks’ protection. Because in the second factor of recognition B. Distinctiveness C. Prior day D. Bad Faith IV. Use before registration Distinctiveness The fundamental principle of China’s trademark protection laws is that trademark rights derived from use of unregistered marks are not generally recognized, and, on the whole, first to usage of a trade mark is irrelevant. Exclusive rights of trademark usage are granted to the first applicant for registration of a particular trademark. The only exception is where more than one application for the right to use identical, or similar, product is made on the same day. In such a case, the first to use the trademark will be given preliminary approval.

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