An essay on trademark law practice entitled How to Effectively Respond to Rejection of an Application for Trademark Registration, written by W&B attorney Yuan Mei, was recently published in 2015 Volume 6 of the authoritative Chinese trade journal China Trademark.

China Trademark is an authoritative journal for Chinese trademark law that is administered by the State Administration for Industry and Commerce and published by the China Trademark Association. It serves as a significant medium for publicizing and publishing trademark laws and regulations and provides information about trademarks.

The author points out in the essay that when an application for trademark registration is rejected by the China Trademark Office (hereinafter the “CTMO”), the applicant can not only file a petition for review with the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board (hereinafter “TRAB”), but under certain circumstances can also institute supporting countermeasures to eliminate prior rights obstacles created by the cited trademark and to achieve the ultimate purpose of obtaining registration approval.

In the first part, entitled Responding to Rejection of an Application for Trademark Registration through Review, the author respectively discusses strategies for responding to the CTMO’s absolute and relative grounds for rejection of an application for trademark registration.

In the second part, entitled Instituting Supporting Countermeasures in Addition to Review of a Rejection of an Application for Trademark Registration, the author proposes a number of supporting countermeasures, including revocation based on non-use of the trademark for three consecutive years, declaration of invalidity of the trademark, objection, assignment, agreements on registration/agreements on coexistence, re-filing of the registration application, and amendment to the trademark application. The author also elaborates on the features and application requirements for each of the countermeasures. In practice, flexibly applying one or more countermeasures based on the specific circumstances of each case will help to coordinate with the rejection review and expedite the trademark registration.