Recently, China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) issued a notice on public solicitation of comments on the Revised Draft of the Trademark Law (Draft for Comments). China’s trademark law is facing the fifth revision since its promulgation in 1983. In this solicitation draft, the Trademark Law has been expanded from 73 to 101 articles, including 23 new articles, 6 formal amendments to existing articles, 45 substantive amendments to existing articles, and only 27 basically maintaining existing articles. In other words, in terms of the number of articles, the proportion of changes is so large that it has become the most significant revised draft of China’s trademark law in history.
First of all, the most eye-catching thing in the revised draft is to strengthen the strong regulation of malicious preemption of trademarks. It clarifies the specific situation of malicious preemption application for trademark registration, and makes it clear that the malicious registration can be punished through various ways of trademark administrative procedure, civil procedure and criminal procedure. For example, if the malicious preemption and damage the civil rights of a specific subject, the subject may request the infringer to bear civil liability for compensation; If it harms the national interests, social public interests or causes other serious unhealthy or negative influences, the state procuratorial organ may file a public interest lawsuit. Read more