What are the rules for the process and time of trademark registration? 1, design? Before applying for trademark registration, you can entrust our company or design it yourself. Trademark design should pay attention to the following points: (1) originality, that is, trademark design should be innovative; On the one hand, it is necessary to meet the requirements of distinctiveness, on the other hand, creative trademarks are easy to expand the popularity of goods and quickly occupy the market. (2) The name of a trademark should avoid being associated with the function of the commodity. (3) The design of trademarks should highlight the theme and make a reasonable layout.
2. query? Trademark inquiry usually refers to the inquiry about trademark information made by the applicant for trademark registration in order to know whether there is a prior trademark right that may conflict with the trademark he applied for registration. It takes a long time for a trademark to apply for registration. If the application for trademark registration is rejected, on the one hand, the trademark registration fee will be lost, on the other hand, it will take longer to reapply for registered trademarks, and it is still unknown whether the reapplication can be approved for registration. Therefore, before applying for a registered trademark, the applicant had better make a trademark inquiry to understand the prior rights. There are two kinds of query services: one is internal query service; The other is 7- 14 working days for government inquiry service.
3. apply? The application documents for trademark registration shall be submitted to the Intellectual Property Department of Hong Kong.
4. accepted? After receiving the application materials for trademark registration, the Intellectual Property Department of Hong Kong will give an application number and issue an acceptance notice, which will take about one week.
5. review? Trademark review is divided into two processes: formal review and substantive review. Formal examination means that before examining the application, the Trademark Registration Office will carefully examine the application and all its attachments to see whether the required parts in the form have been filled in, whether the relevant information is correct and whether the required information is incomplete. If everything is ready, the application procedure will enter the next stage (substantive examination stage). Substantive examination means that the Trademark Registration Office searches the trademark records after checking the shortcomings of the application and making sure that all the information is complete, so as to determine whether other businesses have registered or applied for the registration of the same or similar trademarks for the same or similar goods or services. At the same time, the Trademark Registry will check whether the relevant trademarks meet the registration requirements of the Trade Marks Ordinance. If approved, the application procedure will enter the next stage (gazetting and announcement stage).
6. announcement? After the application is approved by the Trademark Registry, it will be published in the Hong Kong Intellectual Property Gazette for three months. If no one raises an objection, the trademark can be successfully registered.
7. sign up? If there is no objection to the trademark announcement or the objection is not established after the ruling, the registration is successful. In general, it takes about 6 months to obtain the registration certificate. After successful registration, the validity period is 10 year, and the fee can be renewed on time in the first half of the expiration.
Information required for trademark registration 1. To apply for registration in the name of an enterprise, a copy of the business license shall be provided and stamped with the official seal;
2. To apply for registration in the name of an individual, provide a copy of 1 personal ID card and a copy of the business license of individual industrial and commercial households, which shall be stamped with the official seal;
3. Provide trademark words or patterns, and if color protection is needed, color patterns are also needed;
4. The goods/services to be registered can be filled in according to the goods or services operated by the applicant, with reference to the ninth edition of the International Classification of Goods and Services for Trademark Registration (Nice Classification) and the similar classification of goods and services revised by the Trademark Office according to the above international classification;
5. Provide a power of attorney for trademark agency with official seal or signature, which can be downloaded from this website; In particular, the address in the trademark power of attorney should be exactly the same as the registered address in the business license.
Under what circumstances can it not be regarded as a trademark? (a) only the common name, figure and model of the commodity.
The common name, figure and model of a commodity are recognized and used by a certain industry, and some of them are different from other commodities. No one should monopolize, and the use of common names and graphics as trademarks may also harm the interests of other practitioners in the same industry and violate the principle of fair competition. Because these signs themselves do not have the function of distinguishing different operators, when the common names, figures and models of these goods are used as trademarks by an operator for their own goods, and consumers can distinguish the goods with their signs from other similar goods through use, they should be considered to have achieved remarkable results and can be registered as trademarks. For example,? PDA？ Initially, it was a generic term for PDA. When a PDA manufacturer takes it as the trademark of his own product, it is completely compatible with similar products? Business communication? 、? Celebrity? 、? Quick translation? When it is distinguished, it can be considered as identifiable and can be registered according to the existing laws. Of course. PDA？ At that time, it was forbidden by law to register the common name of a commodity as a trademark, not because it was recognizable through use, but because the examination department of the trademark authority did not understand it? PDA？ What's wrong with the common name PDA? Accident? It must be pointed out that even if this trademark is registered, the trademark owner has no right to prohibit others from using the common name on similar goods because it is? Public property? .
(2) directly indicating the quality, main raw materials, functions, uses, weight, quantity and other characteristics of a commodity.
It is forbidden to directly use words and graphics representing the characteristics of commodities as trademarks, which is the same as the above-mentioned reasons for prohibiting the use of common names and graphics of commodities as trademarks. It should be pointed out that what is prohibited by law is only display? Direct? Signs indicating the quality, main raw materials, functions, uses, weight and quantity of goods, indirectly? Signs that indicate or imply certain characteristics of goods are not prohibited, because signs that indirectly indicate or imply certain characteristics of goods may often be trademarks with distinctive characteristics. Even a sign that directly indicates the characteristics of a commodity can obtain remarkable characteristics after use, for example, for dairy products such as milk? Mengniu? Although trademarks directly indicate the raw materials and origin of goods, after long-term and wide-ranging use, they have achieved very remarkable characteristics and identifiability. Before 200 1 amended the Trademark Law, similar trademarks would encounter many difficulties in obtaining registration. However, according to the provisions of Article 1 1 of the revised Trademark Law, registration can be easily approved.
(C) lack of distinctive features
A trademark should have distinctive features, which is a positive condition for applying for registration of a trademark. If it lacks distinctive features and is unrecognizable, it cannot be registered. However, after trial, if the connection between the trademark and the commodity is established, and the distinctive features are obtained, it can be registered.
When using a registered trademark, we should pay attention to the use of the trademark, including the use of the trademark in commodities, commodity packaging or containers and commodity transaction documents, or the use of the trademark in advertisements, exhibitions and other production activities. Commercial documents such as sales invoices and contracts are important parts of commodity trading activities, and the use of trademarks in these commercial documents should be regarded as trademarks? Use? . Does oral sex count in business activities? Use? , need to be combined with other use cases for comprehensive judgment.
Registrants should pay attention to the following issues when using registered trademarks:
First of all, the exclusive right to use a registered trademark is limited to the trademark approved for registration, that is, the trademark logo used should be consistent with the trademark logo approved for registration, and can only be enlarged and reduced in proportion, and the text, graphics and color of the trademark cannot be changed by itself.
Because the fonts of Chinese characters and letters are different, and the appearance of various fonts of the same word is sometimes far apart, such as simplified Chinese characters and traditional Chinese characters, the case of English letters and so on. , so it is required to use any registered font. Sometimes, for aesthetic reasons or other reasons, the registrant will change the font of the trademark, for example, changing bold to italic, which is still allowed in practice.
The same is true of graphics in trademarks. Slight changes to the registered trademark are allowed, such as adding boxes, circles or lines. However, if the text or graphics are changed greatly to form different appearance images, it may constitute a change of registered trademark or even impersonation of a registered trademark. More seriously, if the changed appearance image is similar to the registered trademark of others, it may also constitute. At the same time, if the trademark used is different from the registered trademark, it may also bring adverse effects to the protection of the trademark, because the exclusive right to protect the registered trademark is based on the registered trademark, not on the actually used trademark.
Secondly, registered trademarks must be used on goods and services approved for use. The application for trademark registration must be filed according to different categories according to the provisions of the classification table of similar goods and services. After approval, the goods or services approved for use shall prevail. Where a registered trademark needs to be used on other different kinds of goods or services, a separate application for registration must be filed. The goods or services actually used are beyond the approved scope of goods or services, or used across categories, and should not be marked for registration, otherwise it is an act of counterfeiting registered trademarks. Anyone who is identical with or similar to another person's registered trademark in similar goods or services shall also bear the legal liability for trademark infringement.
The company handles trademark registration.