Zhang Wanxin Trademark Office Agency of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce
In recent years, with the process of my country's economic marketization and the development of the trademark industry, the trademark agency industry has gradually developed and expanded, and the number of trademark agencies and trademark agents has continued to grow rapidly. As of April 30, 2014, a total of 19,300 trademark agencies (including 8,282 law firms) were registered with the Trademark Office to engage in trademark agency business. According to statistics, in the past five years, more than 95% of national trademark registration applications have been submitted through trademark agencies every year. The trademark agency industry provides professional and meticulous services to Chinese enterprises in terms of trademark registration, early warning and rights protection, and legal consultation, etc., and plays a positive role in the sound and rapid development of my country's economy and society.
However, with the gradual saturation of market share and increasingly fierce competition, due to the serious shortage of high-quality trademark agents, some chaos has appeared in the agency industry, mainly as follows: : The overall quality of trademark agency personnel has declined, and some agents lack basic professional ethics; vicious competition in the industry is prominent, and the order of the trademark agency market is relatively chaotic; behaviors that damage the legitimate rights and interests of clients occur frequently, seriously disrupting the normal market economic order; trademark agents are malicious Cases of squatting on other people's trademarks or hyping up trademarks with adverse effects occur from time to time. These problems have a bad impact and have strong social repercussions. Although the State Administration for Industry and Commerce and local industrial and commercial bureaus at all levels have worked hard to innovate regulatory measures and made some useful explorations and attempts, the results have not been very obvious. The main reason is that laws and administrative regulations lack management provisions for the trademark agency industry, making it difficult to achieve effective supervision.
In this regard, the newly revised Trademark Law and Trademark Law Implementing Regulations have formulated special provisions to strengthen the supervision of trademark agencies, adding the following important contents:
First of all, it is clearly stipulated that trademark agencies should abide by the principle of good faith, must handle relevant trademark matters as entrusted, and have the obligation to keep confidential the business secrets of the agent they learn during the agency process.Secondly, strengthen the obligations of trademark agencies. First, if the trademark applied for registration by the client may be prohibited from registration under the Trademark Law, the trademark agency should clearly inform the client, which places higher requirements on the quality and ability of the trademark agency. Second, if a trademark agency knows or should know that the client's application for registered trademark is a case of preemptive registration, it shall not accept the entrustment. The third is to apply for trademarks from trademark agenciesThe qualifications of registration entities are limited to prevent trademark agencies from using their own business advantages to maliciously register other people's trademarks, which is conducive to promoting the professional and standardized operation of trademark agencies.
Third, it clearly stipulates the responsibilities and penalties that trademark agencies should bear when committing illegal acts, focusing on credit management and suspension of acceptance.
The Trademark Law stipulates illegal acts of trademark agency in an enumerated manner, and the Implementing Regulations of the Trademark Law are further detailed and have a relatively broad scope, basically covering those that are easy to occur and frequently occur. Illegal conduct. Trademark agencies and directly responsible persons who commit illegal acts will be strictly distinguished between different situations, and their administrative responsibilities, civil responsibilities and criminal responsibilities may be investigated in accordance with the law.
Honesty and credit are the basic principles of the market economy. Strengthening the credit construction of trademark agencies is the fundamental strategy to rectify and standardize the order of the agency market. Strengthening credit management and building a credit management system through information collection, publicity, and sharing can achieve social governance and achieve the purpose of strengthening market supervision and maintaining market order. The Implementation Regulations of the Trademark Law stipulate that when filing, trademark agencies should submit their basic information and the status of trademark agency employees. The industrial and commercial departments will establish credit files and report illegal acts of trademark agencies and record them in their credit files. This regulation will play an important role in praising integrity, punishing dishonesty, guiding and standardizing trademark agencies to abide by the law and standardize their operations, increasing the cost of trademark agencies being dishonest, and creating a situation where "one violation is violated, and everywhere is restricted."
The Trademark Law stipulates that if a trademark agency commits serious illegal acts, the Trademark Office and the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board may stop accepting the trademark agency business handled by it. The cessation of acceptance means that illegal trademark agencies have actually lost their qualifications to engage in trademark agency business such as trademark application and trademark review within a certain period of time, and have also lost the credibility basis for continuing to engage in trademark agency business. The combination of suspension of acceptance and credit management, and the implementation of "market ban" on institutions and personnel who seriously violate the law, can effectively combat, deter, and prevent illegal trademark agency activities.
The newly revised Trademark Law and Trademark Law Implementation Regulations respond to social concerns and make targeted provisions on outstanding issues existing in the trademark agency industry. The measures are powerful and the operation It is strong in nature and achieves a better combination of lenient progress and strict management, providing a clear legal basis for trademark administrative enforcement. It plays an important role in strengthening trademark agency supervision, maintaining the market order of fair competition, and protecting the legitimate rights and interests of trademark applicants. , will have a significant and far-reaching impact on the development of my country's trademark industry.
Source: Trademark Office of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce
