The Application Of Article 30 Of The Trademark Law In Trademark Opposition – Trademark

Article 30 of Trademark Law stipulates that “where a trademark application does not comply with
the relevant provisions of this Law or is identical or similar to a
registered or preliminarily approved mark used in connection with the same
or similar goods, it shall be refused by the Trademark Office and
the mark shall not be published.”

This regulation consists of two parts — first, any mark applied for registration that does not comply
with the relevant provisions of the Trademark Law will be rejected
by the CNIPA; second, any mark applied which are identical /
similar to prior registered or preliminarily approved marks over
the same or similar goods will be rejected by the CNIPA. The first
part of this article likes a catch-all clause. If a trademark
application violates specific legal provisions of the Law, the
specific provisions should be cited to reject the application and
this provision will not be applied.

In the CNIPA’s refusal notification, we often see the CNIPA
citing Article 30 to reject an application. In fact, this clause is
also often cited by opponents in opposition cases. However, the
CNIPA does not often deem that the opposed marks are similar to
cited marks. In the past, the CNIPA seemed to quote Article 4 and
Articles 7 together with 30 (the first part) more often. After
China Trademark Law increased its crackdown on trademarks filed in
bad faith, the number of trademarks registered in bad faith has
dropped significantly. Therefore, in future opposition cases, we
must actually focus more on judging the degree of similarity
between the two parties’ marks, trying to successfully oppose
marks by the second half of Article 30 of Trademark Law.

This article lists some of the opposition cases that the author
has handled. In these cases, the CNIPA deemed two parties’
marks are similar and then supported the opponent’s claim. This
has certain reference significance in practice:

The opponent in the above case is a company that is not very
well-known in mainland China, and the cited marks are not
well-known in China either. Through the opponent’s search, the
opposed parties have no obvious bad faith, so in this situation,
the detailed analysis of the high degree of similarity between the
opposed marks and the cited marks is the key to the success of such
cases.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general
guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought
about your specific circumstances.