If you have not registered your trademark in China, the answer is NO.
This post was first published in CJO GLOBAL, which is committed to providing consulting services in China-related cross-border trade risk management and debt collection.We will explain how debt collection works in China below.Many customers have asked us such questions.
If you have already registered, the answer is yes. Your trademark has a chance to be protected. In addition, you need to have a professional local agency like us to enforce your trademark.
1. Can your country’s trademark registration protect your trademark in China?
No.
As STOPfakes.gov said, which is managed by the International Trade Administration (ITA), U.S. Department of Commerce:
A U.S. trademark registration will not protect your trademark in a foreign country. Trademarks are territorial and must be filed in each country where protection is sought.
This means that if your trademark is not registered in China, or, to put it another way, you do not own a trademark in China, you cannot fully protect your trademark in China.
This is because if you do not register your brand or logo as a trademark in China and the trademark has been registered by someone else in China, you cannot use the logo or brand in China and cannot claim infringement by someone else.
2. How to register a trademark in China?
You have two options:
Option one: local application in China
You may apply for trademark registration directly to China’s Trademark Office. All you need to do is to entrust a Chinese trademark agency.
Option two: international application
If you already have a trademark in your country, you may seek registration in China by filing an international application according to the Madrid Protocol with the International Bureau of the World Property Intellectual Organization (WIPO), through your country’s trademark registration authority, since China has joined the Madrid Protocol.
3. Please value your priority
If you have registered the trademark in your country, within six months, you have priority when you register the trademark in China. This will prevent your trademark from being registered by someone else in China.
Under China’s Trademark Law, if you file another application for registration of the same trademark in China within six months from the date of your first application for trademark registration in another country, you can claim priority in China.
This means that during the six months, you are still entitled to the trademark even if you apply for trademark registration later than someone else.
So, you’d better apply for a Chinese trademark within the priority period.
Photo by Max Zhang on Unsplash
Contributors: Meng Yu 余萌
