What is a trademark agency?

I. Concept According to Article 63 of the General Principles of the Civil Law, agency means that an agent engages in civil legal acts in the name of the principal within the scope of agency authority, and the legal achievements generated directly belong to the principal. Trademark agency is a kind of civil entrusted agency, that is, a trademark agent engages in trademark affairs in the name of the principal within his agency authority, which is an important part of social legal intermediary services. Two. Professionalism and Particularity As an important part of intellectual property legal intermediary services, trademark agency is highly professional and technical. Trademark agency system first of all, trademark rights are not naturally produced according to law. Secondly, a considerable part of trademark agency business belongs to non-legal professional affairs. Trademark agents need to accurately grasp the classification of goods and services and thoroughly grasp the trademark examination standards. Take commodity classification as an example. According to the Nice Agreement on the International Classification of Goods and Services for Trademark Registration, * * * has 42 categories, involving tens of thousands of commodities, which are divided into 485 similar groups in China. The system is complex, the content is trivial and constantly changing. Judging commodity categories and similar groups requires professional knowledge and long-term practical experience to accurately grasp and distinguish them. However, due to the lack of talents who have a comprehensive understanding of trademark knowledge, it is difficult for enterprises to complete the above tasks alone. Third, the selection criteria 1, to see if it has a long history: the trademark processing cycle is very long, and it takes at least 1.5 years for a new application to be issued; It also takes nearly 1 year for change, transfer, contract filing and renewal. The agency with a long history is mature, and it will not close down because of short-term business problems like those newly established small firms, so that you can rest assured of the trademarks you operate, and avoid falling into the dilemma that you can't get the registration certificate and find people after one year, and there is no way to complain; 2. It depends on whether the personnel are professional: all powerful agents in China hold the trademark agent qualification certificate issued by the Trademark Office, and less than 2,000 people in China hold this certificate. 3. It depends on the scale of their agents: since the country opened the trademark agency market in 2003, nearly 1,000 trademark agency organizations have been established all over the country, including more than 40 in Henan. Most of these trademark agencies only have dozens of agents a year, which is simply not enough to survive. 4. Depends on the credibility: a large-scale and reputable agency will seek truth from facts when handling trademark registration, and will truthfully tell you the period and cost of trademark registration in advance; Some agencies that lack credibility often boast that they will give you a good trademark in a few months, which is only the beginning of expected cheating; 5. It depends on whether there is a good registration certificate. It depends on whether it is filed with the state administrative organ. 7. The merger of the Trademark Office and the Patent Office is conducive to strengthening the overall strength of the Patent Office. Patent agents implement strict examination system, with low admission rate and high stability in practice. The combination of patent and trademark office is a common organizational form in the world. Therefore, large-scale patent and trademark offices not only avoid the dilemma of firm closure, but also have significantly higher work experience and agency quality than ordinary trademark agencies. 8. Although registered trademarks can be operated across regions, there are many inconvenient factors in cross-regional operation. For example, if you want to submit materials and communicate by telephone, even you don't know which direction the company's door is opening, so you'd better find a local company agent! The construction of regular companies is perfect. Generally, there are fixed trademark consultants from the beginning of registration to the end of trademark design. With rich experience, the probability of submission is greatly increased. As many people know, the probability of submitting it earlier is greater than that of submitting it later. The quality of trademark design is also an important part of the future word-of-mouth construction of enterprises! Four. Trademark agents Article 13 A trademark agent shall meet the following conditions: (1) Having full capacity for civil conduct; (2) Having a college degree or above (or equivalent) and having passed the qualification examination or assessment of trademark agents; (3) Having not received criminal punishment, except for negligent crimes; (four) has not been expelled from public office or revoked the qualification of trademark agent; (five) abide by laws and regulations, abide by professional ethics and practice discipline, and earnestly safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of customers. State functionaries shall not concurrently serve as trademark agents. Article 14 A trademark agent shall attend business training every year. The Trademark Office is responsible for the training of agents and may entrust the Trademark Agency Branch of China Trademark Association to implement it. The qualification of trademark agent shall be assessed every two years. Measures for the qualification examination, assessment and verification of trademark agents shall be formulated by the Trademark Agency Branch of China Trademark Association and reported to the Trademark Office for the record. Article 15 A trademark agent shall sign the documents submitted by the trademark agency organization to the Trademark Office and the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board. Article 16 A trademark agent shall not engage in trademark agency business in two or more trademark agency organizations at the same time. Before leaving the trademark agency organization, the trademark agent must properly handle the unfinished trademark agency business. Article 17 A trademark agency shall go through the appointment formalities with the trademark agent, and report to the Trademark Office in writing for the record within 15 days from the date of appointment. Where the employment relationship is terminated, the trademark agency organization shall submit a written report to the Trademark Office for filing within/0/5 days from the date of termination. To sum up, the General Principles of the Civil Law has detailed provisions on what is a trademark agent, and at the same time, it also has detailed provisions on the conditions that a trademark agent should have. This shows that trademark agency is not only a commercial activity, but also a civil legal activity, so it is necessary to choose a trademark agency carefully.