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Work plan to systematically manage malicious trademark registrations and promote high-quality development (2023-2025)

In order to thoroughly implement the goals and tasks set in the "Outline for Building a Powerful Country on Intellectual Property (2021-2035)" and the "14th Five-Year Plan for National Intellectual Property Protection and Application", further implement the deployment requirements of the 2023 National Intellectual Property Office Directors' Meeting, and consolidate This plan has been formulated based on the results of the work in combating malicious trademark registrations in recent years, deepening the governance of malicious trademark registrations in all areas, maintaining a clean and upright trademark registration management order and a market order of fair competition, and creating a good innovation environment and business environment.

1. Overall requirements

(1) Guiding ideology. Guided by Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, we will fully implement the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, conscientiously implement General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important instructions on intellectual property work, completely, accurately and comprehensively implement new development concepts, and actively serve and integrate into the new era. development pattern, strengthen systemic governance, legal governance, comprehensive governance, source governance, better coordinate development and security, efficiency and fairness, vitality and order, domestic and international, with the main line of promoting the realization of the "two transformations" of intellectual property rights, and building The goal is to establish a trademark registration order that meets the requirements of high-quality development, focus on improving the governance system and improving efficiency of malicious trademark registrations, strengthen the legal protection of intellectual property rights, improve the working mechanism for combating malicious trademark registrations in accordance with the law, and strengthen institutional and information technology support. Minimize the living space for malicious trademark registrations, effectively prevent and resolve major risks in the trademark field, and provide a strong guarantee for the construction of an intellectual property power and high-quality economic and social development.

(2) Basic principles.

Adhere to the people's position. Adhere to the people-centered development philosophy, focus on chronic diseases, keep a close eye on weak links, and constantly optimize the trademark registration environment so that trademark work can better reflect the people's will, protect people's rights and interests, stimulate people's creativity, and continue to improve the access of the public and market entities. Feeling and satisfaction.

Adhere to laws and regulations. Focus on using the rule of law to make up for shortcomings in governance, follow the principles of openness, fairness, and impartiality, strictly crack down on malicious trademark registrations in accordance with laws and regulations, give market entities stable expectations, and effectively safeguard social fairness and justice and the legitimate rights and interests of market entities.

Insist on system integration. Pay attention to the systematic, holistic and collaborative nature of work, focus on solving problems such as institutional obstacles, mechanism obstruction, and policy innovation in the field of trademark registration, and strive to achieve political, legal and social effects under the constraints of multiple goals and considerations of multiple interests. The organic unity of effects promotes the formation of more overlapping effects and greater governance efficiency.

Adhere to social co-governance. Pay attention to the role of the market, government, society and other parties, strengthen departmental coordination, upper and lower linkages, regional collaboration, and public participation, and comprehensively use legal, administrative, economic, technical, social governance and other means to systematically build a long-term mechanism for the governance of malicious trademark registration behaviors , to achieve common answers to the same questions and joint governance.

(3) Main objectives. By 2025, substantial progress will be made in the governance of malicious trademark registrations, the governance system will be further improved, the policies and regulations for the governance of malicious trademark registrations will be more complete, the rights and responsibilities of governance subjects will be clear, and the governance mechanism will operate efficiently, forming a system with laws to abide by and the participation of all parties. Multi-dimensional integrated governance system; governance capabilities have further improved, departmental collaboration and linkage between departments are efficient and smooth, overall coordination is strong and orderly, and information technology assistance capabilities have been significantly enhanced; governance efficiency has been further improved, and the trend of frequent, prone and frequent malicious trademark registrations has been basically reversed , market entities, agencies and the general public actively resist malicious trademark registrations, trademark application behavior continues to return to rationality, and a good trademark registration ecology of honest registration, strengthened use, and strict protection is gradually formed.

2. Improve the legal system for the governance of malicious trademark registrations

(4) Strengthen legal support. Actively promote a new round of revisions to the Trademark Law and the formulation and revision of supporting laws and regulations such as the Implementation Regulations of the Trademark Law, and strengthen the connection between legal norms at different levels. Drawing lessons from mature international practices, we actively demonstrate regulatory measures for malicious trademark registrations, significantly increase the cost of violating laws and regulations, and provide strong institutional guarantees for combating malicious trademark registrations.

(5) Improve review policy standards. Based on the phased and domain-specific characteristics of malicious trademark registrations, we shall promptly formulate, adjust, and effectively implement review and review policies. The "Trademark Examination and Trial Guidelines" are dynamically revised in response to frequent problem areas and the review and transfer process. Strengthen research on difficult issues in the management of malicious trademark registrations, formulate relevant policy documents in a timely manner, and explore innovative review rules in accordance with the law.

(6) Strengthen the enforcement of laws and regulations.Strictly implement the"Trademark Law" "Trademark Law Implementation Regulations"，"Several Provisions on Regulating Trademark Registration Applications" "Trademark Agency Supervision and Management Provisions""Well-known Trademark Recognition and Protection Provisions" and other laws and regulations, and strictly enforce trademarks that apply for registration in bad faith. To be rejected, not to be approved for registration, not to be declared invalid, not to be approved for transfer, not to be registered for pledge. Strengthen the tracking and handling of trademark registration applications that are rejected in violation of prohibited clauses. Those who continue to use the trademark despite knowing that it is illegal will be strictly investigated and punished. Applicants and trademark agencies that engage in malicious trademark registrations in violation of laws and regulations will be investigated and dealt with in accordance with the law. Those who repeatedly register trademarks in bad faith or have other serious circumstances will be severely punished in accordance with the law, and will be determined to be serious illegal and dishonest behaviors in accordance with the law and regulations.

3. Improve the working mechanism to strictly crack down on malicious trademark registrations in accordance with the law

(7) Give full play to the role of the joint working mechanism to crack down on malicious registrations. Implement a regular consultation system, track the research and judgment work situation, characteristics, and patterns, strengthen the principle judgment standards of malicious registration and the research on legal application of new major, difficult and complex cases, and promote the resolution of important issues in the implementation of the "Several Provisions on Regulating the Behavior of Trademark Application Registration" question.

(8) Improve the clue investigation mechanism. Strengthen the monitoring and data statistics of trademark application behavior, strengthen the investigation and early warning of malicious trademark registration behavior, and achieve effective prevention, timely discovery, and precise crackdown. Strengthen the investigation and collection of clues about malicious trademark registrations, improve the reporting mechanism for clues about illegal activities, unblock reporting and complaint channels, and enhance the role of social supervision. Improve clue discovery, verification, and disposal mechanisms in monitoring social public opinion, handling petition matters, and trademark review and hearing.

(9) Improve departmental coordination mechanisms. Strengthen work coordination and departmental cooperation, and improve mechanisms such as clue reporting, case analysis, data exchange, and information sharing among trademark registration, trademark management, administrative law enforcement, and judicial departments. Give full play to the role of various trademark examination collaboration centers in discovering clues and assisting in verification. Support industry associations in various fields to establish and improve self-regulatory mechanisms for trademark registration in their industries.

(10) Consolidate local territorial supervision responsibilities. All local intellectual property management departments shall strengthen the prevention, monitoring and handling of malicious trademark registrations within their jurisdictions, promptly report clues of suspected malicious trademark registrations discovered during work, and work with relevant departments to investigate and deal with malicious trademark registrations in accordance with the law, and implement trademark agencies, The local supervision responsibilities of trademark trading service agencies and platforms are to strictly prevent and control and promptly stop the spillover of illegal activities.

4. Deepen the crackdown on malicious trademark registration in all fields

(11) Focus on cracking down on trademarks with major adverse effects and those that are obviously deceptive. Improve the mechanism for reporting and handling the discovery of trademarks with major adverse effects, and add rules for ex officio invalidation of registered trademarks with major adverse effects and rules for rapid disposal of substantive examination, objection, and review procedures. Intensify the crackdown on obviously deceptive trademarks, and prevent and investigate behaviors that deceive and mislead the public through false descriptions, exaggerated functions, etc. through applications for registered trademarks. Emphasis on source prevention, continue to improve the trademark review prohibited vocabulary and guidance vocabulary, and build a trademark review guidance library. Strengthen the use of banned word libraries in the trademark application process. Timely discover, intercept, track and deal with registration applications and uses of trademarks that have significant adverse effects and are obviously deceptive. We will continue to focus on cracking down on major adverse effects and obviously deceptive trademarks through rapid rejection, ex officio declaration of invalidity of registered trademarks, notice exposure, administrative penalties and other means, and firmly maintain the bottom line of no systemic risks.

(12) Strictly crack down on malicious trademark registration. Strictly implement Articles 3 and 4 of the "Several Provisions on Regulating Trademark Applications for Registration", and adopt measures such as early review and trial, combined case review and oral hearing in major cases during the review of trademark objections and trademark invalidation proceedings, to deal with violations of Trademarks under Articles 13, 15, and 32 of the Trademark Law shall not be registered or declared invalid in accordance with the law. Those who violate the principle of good faith and engage in malicious trademark preemption and those who engage in illegal agency activities will The agency's case clues will be forwarded to relevant departments for investigation and handling according to law. A large number of malicious trademark registrations and transfers for profit will not be approved in accordance with the law.

(13) Precisely crack down on malicious trademark hoarding. Formulate and revise relevant operating procedures for identifying malicious trademark hoarding through procedures such as trademark registration review, opposition, review, and transfer, and carry out a full-process crackdown on malicious trademark hoarding in an institutionalized and standardized manner. Improve the key monitoring list of malicious trademark registration perpetrators that are not intended for use throughout the entire trademark registration process, and achieve accurate identification and targeted disposal of malicious trademark hoarding behaviors. Implement automatic combined review and full-time review of malicious trademark registration applications that are not intended for use to further improve the effectiveness of crackdowns. Carry out rectification on malicious registration of trademarks that are hoarding and touting. Strengthen the regulation of malicious hoarding of trademark transfers and pledges, and block illegal profit-making channels. Explore the use of penetrating review thinking to promote cross-regional, cross-department, cross-level, and cross-process data sharing, break down data barriers, and effectively deal with the problems of invisible variation and refurbishment of malicious trademark hoarding behavior.

(14) Integrated management of other malicious behaviors in the field of trademark registration. Research effective ways and means to speed up the review of trademark applications filed on the same day, and continuously reduce the possibility of malicious use of the same-day application process. Strengthen the investigation and screening of trademarks applied for on the same day. If a trademark agency accepts the entrustment of two parties with conflicts of interest in the same trademark case, it will be transferred to the relevant departments for investigation and punishment. After fulfilling the notification obligation, explore the initiative to cite the use evidence materials submitted in other similar cases within one year when the registered trademark has not been used for three consecutive years in the revocation review, so as to reduce the evidence burden caused to the trademark owner by malicious repeated "withdrawal of three" behaviors. burden. Strengthen the crackdown on the behavior of obtaining trademark registration by deception or other improper means, and transfer clues to registrants and trademark agencies that violate laws and regulations to relevant departments for investigation and punishment. If the forgery of legal documents and other acts constitutes a crime, they will be transferred to judicial organs for investigation of criminal responsibility in accordance with the law. For those who forge certification materials for geographical indications and trademarks, illegal clues will be transferred to relevant departments for processing. Continue to standardize trademark transfer behavior, apply for trademark transfer that has a specific direction or special meaning, and is likely to mislead the relevant public after transfer or may have a negative impact on social and public interests; apply for a registered trademark without the purpose of use and transfer the trademark for profit; and disrupt the trademark Applications for trademark transfer in the registration order will not be approved in accordance with the law.

(15) Address the abuse of trademark rights in accordance with the law. For trademark registrants who have abused their trademark rights and engaged in malicious litigation as determined by the court's effective judgment, the registered trademark involved in the case shall be strictly examined and tried in accordance with the law in cases of invalidation declaration and non-use of the registered trademark for three consecutive years. The registered trademark involved in the case falls under the "Trademark Law" Under the circumstances listed in paragraph 1 of Article 44, the registered trademark shall be declared invalid ex officio.

(16) Strengthen law enforcement for illegal trademark registrations in bad faith. Communicate closely with the State Administration for Market Regulation to improve the trademark enforcement and protection working mechanism. Strengthen information exchange and law enforcement cooperation between the central and local governments, promptly transfer clues to cases of malicious trademark registration to relevant departments, increase business guidance and follow-up inspections of local case investigations, and incorporate local handling into the performance assessment of administrative protection.

(17) Efforts to strengthen trademark agency supervision. We will do a good job in the re-registration of trademark agencies and practitioners, strictly implement the filing conditions and strengthen business management and other measures. Promote supervision and management focusing on trademark agency practitioners, strengthen the real-name registration system for practitioners, improve the signature information collection system, and effectively implement the responsibilities of illegal agents to the people. Continue to strengthen self-discipline in the trademark agency industry.

5. Strengthen the construction of credit system in the field of trademark registration

(18) Establish and improve the credit commitment system for trademark registration. Establish a credit commitment system for trademark authorization and confirmation procedures, and clarify the scope of application and credit commitment matters. Parties who violate their commitments will bear adverse review results in accordance with the law. For parties that seriously violate their commitments and obtain trademark registration by deception or other means, their registered trademarks will be declared invalid ex officio and listed as breach of trust in accordance with the law.

(19) Strengthen credit supervision in the trademark field. Give play to the basic role of credit supervision, increase the punishment of illegal and untrustworthy behavior of malicious registration of trademarks, carry out credit supervision in the trademark field in accordance with the "Market Supervision and Management Measures for the Management of Serious Illegal and Untrustworthy Lists" and the "Regulations on Intellectual Property Credit Management of the State Intellectual Property Office". Joint punishment will be implemented for serious illegal and untrustworthy entities. Give full play to the role of the credit information sharing mechanism, make full use of the national enterprise credit information disclosure system, the national credit information sharing platform, etc., increase information collection, inquiry, and disclosure, and form a credit supervision pattern that is jointly constructed, governed, and shared by all parties.

6. Efforts to improve the ability to manage malicious trademark registrations

(20) Enhance governance capabilities. Strengthen the integration of work forces, strengthen the construction of relevant professional talent teams and special training, coordinate the management of malicious trademark registration and risk management and control, improve the quality and efficiency of review and trial, and further improve the ability to prevent and respond to major risks.

(21) Enrich governance methods. Effectively use non-mandatory law enforcement methods such as persuasion, education, interviews and warnings to achieve a balance between leniency and severity and legal principles. Actively promote the establishment of trademark registration and management platform projects, effectively use new technologies such as big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence to build a new modern governance model supported by information technology to achieve similar case push, result comparison, data analysis, and defect detection. Prompts and other functions drive system innovation and business changes. Research and optimize trademark fee standards, promote the establishment of a tiered fee system, and give full play to the regulatory role of economic leverage. Improve the statistical monitoring working mechanism, strengthen the full collection, intelligent analysis and effective use of relevant data, and improve the accuracy of combating malicious trademark registration in all fields.

(22) Govern strictly in accordance with the law. Firmly establish awareness of the rule of law, procedures, and evidence, carry out work strictly in accordance with authority, rules, and procedures, adhere to the equal application of laws and legal responsibilities, equally protect the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese and foreign rights holders in accordance with the law, and make trademark review decision documents more widely publicized. , promptly respond to reasonable concerns and appeals, and improve the standardization and credibility of the governance of malicious trademark registration behaviors. Further standardize the exercise of discretionary power, refine and quantify the principled clauses with vague boundaries or flexible clauses with large discretion in laws, regulations and rules, and promote the correct and unified application of laws and consistent implementation of standards.

7. Continue to lay a solid foundation for trademark review and review work oriented toward strengthening protection.

(23) Further improve the quality of trademark review and review. Build an overall situation analysis system and a whole-process quality supervision system for trademark examination and trial, deepen the reform of the examination and approval system, optimize the supervision mechanism of trademark examination and entrustment business by adjusting the type of business entrustment and the amount of entrusted tasks, strictly implement the trademark examination and trial guidelines and work procedures, and maximize the Prevent and regulate malicious trademark registrations, and use high-quality trademark review to stimulate the development momentum and innovation vitality of market entities.

(24) Improve the efficiency of trademark review and hearing in all aspects. Further optimize the trademark review and trial process, refine the management of review and trial time limits, speed up trademark authorization and confirmation with high-quality and efficient review and trial, and accelerate the release of idle trademark resources. Promptly and accurately disclose the progress of trademark review and trial, give rights holders clear and reasonable expectations about the time limit for review and trial, and continuously reduce the profit margin of malicious trademark registrants.

(25) Explore and implement differentiated review policies. Expand the scope of application of the trademark expedited review mechanism to more effectively serve the country's major regional development strategies and the overall high-quality economic and social development. Study and establish a sound system within the legal framework for the deferment and suspension of review and hearing based on application cases that is beneficial to legitimate rights holders, so as to reduce the troubles caused by maliciously registered trademarks to legitimate rights holders such as "repeated applications" and "exhaustion of legal procedures", and reduce the difficulty in obtaining trademarks by legitimate rights holders. The institutional cost of exclusive rights is unnecessary.

(26) Coordinate the relationship between protecting trademark rights and maintaining the order of trademark registration. Grasp the balance of interests between right holders and the public. We must not only severely crack down on and curb malicious trademark registration and hoarding, but also accurately grasp the private nature of trademark rights to prevent arbitrary expansion of the scope of the crackdown and create and develop brands for market entities. Leave space. Accurately distinguish the absolute and relative reasons for declaring the invalidation of a registered trademark. It is necessary to form effective regulations on behaviors that obviously violate the intrinsic value of the trademark, damage the trademark registration order and social public interests, and also to formulate effective regulations on behaviors that have true intention of use and have been put into actual commercial use. Registered trademarks, as well as registered trademarks that have been registered for a long time and have formed a stable market structure, are more prudent in making invalidation decisions.

(27) Adhere to governance norms and promote development. Strengthen tracking research and guidance services, draw the bottom line, and set up "traffic lights", which not only continue to deter malicious trademark registration violations through governance, but also are guided by the needs of market entities, actively support reasonable trademark applications, and protect the legitimate rights and interests of market entities in accordance with the law. , boost the development confidence of market entities and stimulate the development vitality of market entities. Actively regulate their own behavior, not only make full use of governance measures within the legal framework, but also continuously improve working methods and methods to minimize and avoid the negative impact that review activities may have on the normal operations of market entities.

8. Strengthen organizational guarantees, supervision and accountability

(28) Strengthen organizational leadership. Uphold the Party’s overall leadership over trademark work. Relevant departments of the State Intellectual Property Office and the Trademark Office, local intellectual property management departments, and trademark review and collaboration centers must have a deep understanding of the special importance of managing malicious trademark registrations, clarify the division of responsibilities, strengthen work coordination, and implement work responsibilities. Ensure that all tasks are implemented.

(29) Strengthen the guidance of public opinion. Adhere to the joint promotion of publicity, education, and research, make full efforts in theoretical interpretation, legal popularization, and concept guidance, promptly expose typical cases of malicious registration and information about the dishonesty of illegal individuals, enterprises, and agencies, highlight the harmful consequences of malicious registration, and strengthen the public Resist and condemn malicious registration behaviors and urge market entities to consciously fulfill their social responsibilities of respecting and protecting trademark rights.

(30) Strengthen supervision and accountability. Adhere to comprehensive and strict Party governance, and resolutely investigate and deal with corruption issues that may be hidden behind malicious trademark registrations, especially cases where trademark staff collude with applicants and trademark agencies internally and externally, and intentionally make wrong review and trial conclusions. Strictly regulate the behavior of trademark staff working in trademark agencies in accordance with the law. Those who do not strictly implement laws and regulations, make major mistakes in review and trial decisions, and cause serious adverse social impacts will be held accountable in accordance with the rules and disciplines.