Beijing Intellectual Property Court Changes the Filing Process for Trademark Administrative Litigation Proceedings
The Beijing Intellectual Property Court has announced a new step to modify the filing processes for administrative litigation involving trademarks, particularly in situations involving trademark review of refusal cases. There are countless instances right now when the CNIPA (as the defendant) lost litigation as a result of circumstances. The CNIPA and the Court have both taken action to stop additional legal disputes brought on by such changes in circumstances. The Beijing Intellectual Property Court has now modified the filing processes for cases involving administrative litigation involving trademarks and set a 12-month maximum extension for formally filing litigation.
In general, cases pending judgments on cited trademarks will obtain a resolution within this time. The applicant may be required to withdraw the action and request that CNIPA issue a new decision if circumstances change during this time. The following are the specific provisions:
- If the mentioned mark’s status is unstable, the applicant can ask for a 12-month extension for presenting the required documents to formally file the case in court when filing the pleading before the first deadline for administrative litigation on trademark review of refusal cases. There isn’t any more room for time extension. The requirement is that the listed trademarks are already in an unstable state prior to CNIPA’s judgment on the matter and that their final conclusion is sufficient to have a significant influence on the case’s trial. When we request a time extension, preliminary proof of the mentioned trademarks’ unstable condition should be provided, together with an explanation of how it could affect the case.
- For any other administrative litigation cases, if the involved party is from another country or from Hong Kong, Macau, or Taiwan of China, the applicant may request a 3-month extension for submitting the necessary documents to formally file the case in Court (i.e., the applicant will have a total of 6 months to prepare and complete the notarization and legalization of required documents). There isn’t any more room for time extension.
The aforementioned modifications to the legal process have the following effects on administrative disputes involving trademarks in China.
If the following conditions are met, the foreign entities may file the case for the first time and request a time extension:
- The client finds it challenging to complete the notarization and legalization of the required documents in order to properly file the case in court. In this situation, we may expand the time frame from the previous three months to the longest six months;
- In litigation related to trademark review of refusal cases, the status of the listed marks is not stable (such as pending examination of cancellation, objection, invalidation, name/address change, ownership change, etc.). In this situation, we extend the deadline for submitting the notarized and legalized documents from the previous three months to the longest months, whichever is longer.
***Other Articles***
– You could see How To Register a Trademark in China here.
– You could visit here to see the Procedure of Trademark in China.
– You could visit here to check the Required documents for filing a trademark in China.
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