The special action focused on cracking down on the actions of malicious squatting of trademarks, seeking improper interests, disrupting the order of trademark registration management, which causes greater adverse social impact as follows,

(1) Maliciously squatting of the names of national or regional strategies, major activities, major policies, major projects, or major scientific and technological projects;

(2) Maliciously squatting of vocabulary and signs related to public emergencies such as natural disasters, major accidents, major public health incidents, and social security incidents, which harms the public interests of the society;

(3) Maliciously squatting of the names and logos of major events or major exhibitions with a relatively high reputation;

(4) Maliciously registering the names of administrative divisions, mountains and rivers, scenic spots, buildings and other public resources;

(5) Maliciously squatting of public commercial resources such as common names and industry terms of goods or services;

(6) Maliciously squatting of the public figures names, well-known works or character names with high popularity;

(7) Maliciously squatting of others’ trademark or other commercial marks with a relatively high reputation or strong distinctiveness, which damages the prior rights and interests of others;

(8) Obviously violating the prohibition of Article 10 of the Trademark Law and other violations of public order and moral, which causes significant negative social impacts on the country's political, economic, cultural, religious, ethnic and other social public interests and public order;

(9) Trademark agencies accept clients’ entrustment or disturb the order of trademark agency by other improper means even if they know or should know that the client is engaged in the above-mentioned acts;

(10) Other obvious violations of good faith principle.

Implement precise strikes around the entire process of trademark registration. Strengthen the supervision of malicious squatting, realize the synergy of trademark registration, opposition, examination and follow-up service, and promote consistent implementation of standards. The clues in the trademark registration process are handled in accordance with the law by various local trademark examination and cooperation centers with the instructions of Trademark Office. If it constitutes malicious squatting of trademark, the rapid rejection mechanism will be activated. If clues to cases in the trademark opposition or invalidation procedures constitute malicious registration of trademark, measures such as advance review and trial, combined review and trial, and oral trial of major cases should be adopted, and registration shall not be granted or be declared invalid in accordance with the law.

From CNIPA

March 24th, 2021