Substantive examination mainly covers four aspects: whether the trademark violates the prohibited clauses of the Trademark Law (Article 10); whether it has distinctive character (Article 11); whether it is identical or similar to a trademark previously applied for or registered on identical or similar goods (Articles 30 and 31); and whether it harms others' prior rights or constitutes bad-faith squatting. The timeline is about 4–6 months.
Detailed Examination Content
- Prohibited-clause examination: whether the mark contains circumstances listed in Article 10 of the Trademark Law, such as state names, national flags or emblems, names of administrative divisions at or above the county level (with exceptions), or signs that are deceptive or detrimental to socialist morals or customs.
- Distinctiveness examination: whether the mark consists solely of the generic name, device, or model number of the goods, or merely directly indicates the quality, raw materials, function, use, or other characteristics of the goods (Article 11). Marks lacking distinctiveness are usually refused, except where distinctiveness has been acquired through use.
- Prior-right conflict examination: whether the mark is identical or similar to a prior application or registration on identical or similar goods/services. Examiners assess this comprehensively from the perspectives of pronunciation, appearance, meaning, and overall visual effect.
- Other circumstances: functionality examination of three-dimensional marks (Article 12), squatting by agents (Article 15), protection of well-known trademarks (Article 13), and bad-faith applications (Article 4).
Examination Outcomes
- Full pass: preliminary approval and publication.
- Partial refusal: some goods items are refused while the rest are preliminarily approved.
- Total refusal: a Notice of Trademark Refusal is issued, and the applicant may apply to CNIPA for a review of the refusal within 15 days of receiving the notice.
How to Improve the Approval Rate
Conduct a full-class similarity search before filing; avoid using generic or descriptive words as the main body of the mark; for composite marks with high refusal risk, consider filing the word and device elements separately.
If you are unsure about the issues above, you can first do a trademark registration evaluation on MyTMBee and act only after obtaining an analysis from a CNIPA-recorded agent.