Policies and Regulations

Chapter 7 Trademark Review and Adjudication

Updated: 2010-04-22 10:59

It was an essential year in 2009 for clearing out the backlog of trademark review and adjudication cases and shortening the pending time. Under the guidelines ofCentral Government and SAIC, TRAB made careful and comprehensive plans, giving prominence to key areas while innovating to achieve major breakthroughs in manyfields of work. Till the end of 2009, the Board had made prominent progress striving to eliminate the backlog shortening the pending period, laying solid foundation for “resolving the backlog in three years and meeting international standards in five years”.

1. Strictly sticking to the targets and giving prominence to the key areas.

At the beginning of 2009，under the target of resolving the backlog of cases in three years set by SAIC,TRAB figured out its focuses in 2009 on enhancing the intensity of handling complicated cases and striving to resolve all the cases happened before June, 2006, which would make a fundamental change in the status of the backlog cases. To ensure the completion of this arduous task, TRAB made timely adjustments at the beginning of 2009 on the distribution of case-resolving capacity and assigned 90 cases to each official examiner who all working on complicated cases and (1.5 times more than that of 2008). At the same time, TRAB also adjusted the supporting staff, choosing more capable ones to work on complicated cases and increasing the assignments accordingly.

2.Great achievements in clearing out backlog cases and shortening the pending period

2-1. Deepening the tapping potentials and creating a new record in case settlement.

In 2009, a total of 37,002 trademark cases had been concluded, among which 28,594 cases of reviewfor refusal, comparing 27,073 in 2008, and 8,408 complicated cases, 2.62 times of that in 2008 (3,214). Under such heavyworkload, TRAB examiners worked overtime and fulfilled their tasks. The average cases resolved by the official staff was 139, 1.54 times more than their assignment, making an outstanding contributions to the successful completion of the target of resolve the backlog of cases.

2-2. Completely resolving the review cases for refusal.

Except for special occasion such as the citing trademark had to wait for to be examined by CTMO, all the review cases for refusal filed before July,2009 have been concluded. By then, 80 percent of the total backlog of review cases for refusal had been completely closed.

2-3. Fundamentally reversing the backlog status of complicated cases and shortening the pending period.

TRAB started the reviewing of complicated cases applied before the end of 2007, shortening the backlog period of complicated cases to 2.5 years from 13 years at the beginning of 2008, fundamentally reversing the long reviewing period.

2. Actively participating in the administrative proceedings of trademarks

With the multiple increase of case reviewing, especially the conclusion of the complicated cases involving both parties, appeals also dramatically increased. In the year there are 1,843 administrative proceedings involving the trademark review and adjudication, equaling to the total amount of that in the past five years. Among them, 1,346 first instance appeals, 465 second instance, 32 retrial appeals. Altogether, TRAB received 1,222 first instance judgments, winning rate reaching 85.8 percent; 416 second judgments, reaching 82.5 percent; 22 retrial judgments, reaching 90.9 percent.

July 16th and 17th, TRAB Director Xu Ruibiao hosted Trademark Examination and Administrative Proceedings Symposium in Beijing.

3. Earnestly fulfilling the functions of administrative reconsideration

From 1 January,2009,TRAB started to handle the administrative reconsideration cases on trademark registration procedural disputes. To effectively perform this new function, TRAB, based on previous in-depth researches, worked out the "Working System on the Administrative Reconsideration of the Disputes over the Trademark Registration Procedures in Trademark Review and Adjudication Board" to provide a systematic guarantee for the administrative reconsideration. During the reconsideration, TRAB emphasized on convenience of the applicants, reconsideration in accordance with the law, created new mechanism of communication and coordination, and tried to achieve "end to the dispute, close the cases". These efforts had better guaranteed the SAIC administrative function and protected the legal interests of administrative counterpart.

In the year TRAB altogether received 98 administrative reconsideration cases, including 19 applied by natural persons and 79 applied by legal persons and other parties. Among them, 84 cases had closed, including 44 cases maintained the original decision from CTMO, accounting for 52.4 percent; 30 administrative reconsideration cases withdrew by the applicants after the applicants consulting with CTMO, accounting for 35.7 percent; and 10 rejected, accounting for 11.9 percent.