Does the trademark have any legal effect after the preliminary examination?

The examination of trademarks is mainly divided into formal examination and substantive examination.

1) Trademark registration form examinationTrademark form examination (about 3 months), trademark formal examination refers to whether the trademark registration authority complies with the provisions of the law on the documents and procedures for applying for trademark registration, and if it complies with the law, the examination agency will compile the application number, determine the application date, and issue the Notice of Acceptance of the Trademark Registration Application. Since China's trademark registration adopts the principle of first-to-file, once the sequence of the filing date becomes the legal basis for determining the trademark right, the application date of trademark registration is subject to the date on which the Trademark Office receives the application, and the Trademark Office receives the notice of acceptance of the trademark application for the application that meets the formal requirements.

2) Substantive examination of trademark registration Substantive examination of trademark (completed within 9 months from the date of application), which is the examination conducted by the competent authority of trademark registration on whether the application for trademark registration complies with the provisions of the Trademark Law. Data retrieval. Analyze and compare.

A series of activities such as researching and deciding on the preliminary examination or rejection of the application.

The preliminary examination announcement of a trademark (with a time limit of 3 months) refers to the decision to allow the registration of a trademark registration application after it has been examined and meets the relevant provisions of the Trademark Law. and make an announcement in the Trademark Gazette. If no objection is raised within three months from the date of publication of the preliminary examination announcement, the trademark shall be registered and the registration announcement shall be published at the same time.

If no objection is raised within three months or the objection is ruled to be unsubstantiated, the trademark will be registered and the registration certificate will be issued.

What do you mean by legal effect? Is it used to defend rights?

Generally speaking, after the preliminary examination of trademarks, basically more than 90% of them can successfully obtain the registration certificate, which can play a certain role in preventing the registration of identical or similar trademarks registered later. However, the preliminary examination is not the same as obtaining approval and registration, and if you want to use it to protect your rights, it is still very difficult.

Legal analysis: A trademark cannot be used if it passes the preliminary examination.

Legal basis: Trademark Law of the People's Republic of China Article 3 A trademark approved and registered by the Trademark Office is a registered trademark, including commodity trademarks, service trademarks, collective trademarks and certification trademarks; The trademark registrant enjoys the exclusive right to use the trademark and is protected by law. For the purposes of this Law, the term "collective trademark" refers to a sign registered in the name of a group, association or other organization for use by the members of the organization in commercial activities to indicate the user's membership in the organization.

For the purposes of this Law, the term "certification mark" refers to a sign controlled by an organization that has the ability to supervise a certain kind of goods or services, and is used by an entity or individual other than the organization for its goods or services to prove the origin, raw materials, manufacturing methods, quality or other specific qualities of the goods or services. Special matters concerning the registration and management of collective trademarks and certification marks shall be prescribed by the administrative department for industry and commerce.

In general, the examination of the substance of a trademark takes 9 months. Substantive examination of a trademark is a series of activities such as examination, data search, analysis and comparison, investigation and research, preliminary approval or rejection of trademark applications. The Trademark Office makes a decision on preliminary approval of registration, and if it passes the substantive examination, it will issue a preliminary approval announcement, and the trademark registration will enter the next stage, and after the successful registration of the trademark, the effective use period is 10 years, and if it expires after 10 years, it can be renewed.

Substantive examination refers to the examination conducted by the State Patent Office on the novelty, inventiveness, practicability and other substantive contents of the invention for which the patent is applied. Within three years from the filing date of the application for invention specialization, the State Patent Office may conduct a substantive examination of the application according to the request made by the applicant at any time; If the applicant fails to request substantive examination within the time limit without justifiable reasons, the application shall be deemed to be withdrawn by Zhaojian Sakura.

Substantive examination includes the following aspects:

1. Whether the trademark applied for registration violates the prohibition clause of the Trademark Law.

2. Whether the composition of the trademark has the statutory constituent elements and whether it has distinctive characteristics.

3. Whether the trademark is confused with the trademark registered by others on the same or similar goods, and whether it is confused with the trademark that has been applied for earlier and the registered trademark that has been cancelled or invalidated for less than one year.

Legal basis

Trademark Law of the People's Republic of China

Article 28.

For the trademark applied for registration, the Trademark Office shall complete the examination within nine months from the date of receipt of the trademark registration application documents, and if it complies with the relevant provisions of this Law, it shall make a preliminary examination and announcement.

Trademark Law of the People's Republic of China

Article 56.

The exclusive right to use a registered trademark is limited to the trademark approved for registration and the goods approved for use.

Civil Code of the People's Republic of China

Article 444.

Where the property rights in intellectual property rights such as the exclusive right to use a registered trademark, patent right, or copyright are pledged, the pledge right shall be established when the pledge is registered. After the property right in the intellectual property right is pledged, the pledgor shall not transfer or license others to use it, except where the pledgor and the pledgee agree through consultation. The price obtained by the pledgor from the transfer or licensing of others to use the property rights in the pledged intellectual property rights shall be paid off or deposited with the pledgee in advance.

1. Can the preliminary examination announcement of the trademark be used?

The trademark preliminary examination announcement can be used, but there is no exclusive right, others can also use it, and after the announcement is over, it will be completely yours.

2. Trademark registration inquiry.

Trademark search refers to the search of whether the trademark applied for by the applicant for trademark registration or its first person is identical or similar to the trademark of prior rights before filing an application for registration.

The following situations are explained here:

1) Words that lack distinctiveness or are prohibited by the trademark law cannot be queried to determine whether the application for registration can be approved;

2) If the same or similar trademarks of the earlier application have not been entered into the database of the Trademark Office of the State Intellectual Property Office at the time of search, the search results will not be reflected due to the proximity of the time between the two;

3) If the search report provides several trademarks that may constitute similarity, the first person only makes an analysis through general examination standards and experience, and its opinions are for reference only and cannot represent the examination opinions of the Trademark Office of the State Intellectual Property Office;

4) For combined trademarks, if only a part of the trademark (such as Chinese or English) is searched, and other parts of the actual applied trademark (such as graphics) are identical or similar to the registered trademarks of others, the entire trademark will also be rejected;

5) The client only provides the name of the trademark during the search, but due to the differences in font, color, structure or arrangement in the trademark design draft provided at the time of application, the search result will not fully reflect the degree of similarity or similarity of the phase.

3. Examination of trademark registration.

The examination of commercial return is divided into formal examination and substantive examination.

1. Trademark formal examination (3-4 months), it is very important to establish the application date, because China's trademark registration adopts the principle of first-in-the-first application, once the application date occurs in order to become the legal basis for determining the trademark right, the application date of trademark registration is subject to the date on which the Trademark Office of the State Intellectual Property Office receives the application for the application that meets the formal requirements.

2. Substantive examination of trademark (12 months), which is a series of activities such as inspection, data retrieval, analysis and comparison, investigation and research conducted by the competent trademark registration authority on whether the trademark registration application complies with the provisions of the Trademark Law, and decides to give preliminary approval or reject the application. During this period, before the trademark is not approved for registration, please do not mark the registered mark (e.g., registered trademark, etc.) in use, and you can mark TM.

In addition, before the registration is approved, the goods and packaging with the trademark are omitted, or the trademark logo should not be made too much at one time, so as to prevent unnecessary losses caused by the obstruction of registration.

Legal Analysis: The status of a trademark awaiting examination means that the trademark has passed the formal examination and is in the stage of awaiting substantive examination, which indicates a state of examination in the trademark trial process. Substantive examination of trademarks, inspection, data search, analysis and comparison, investigation and research conducted by the competent trademark registration authority on whether the trademark registration application complies with the provisions of the Trademark Law, and the decision to give a preliminary examination or reject the application.

Legal basis: Trademark Law of the People's Republic of China

Article 22 The applicant for the trademark annotation register shall fill in the category and name of the goods using the trademark in accordance with the prescribed commodity classification table, and submit an application for registration. An applicant for trademark registration can apply for the registration of the same trademark in multiple classes of goods through a single application. The application for trademark registration and other relevant documents may be submitted in writing or in the form of a data booklet.

Article 23 Where a registered trademark needs to obtain the exclusive right to use the trademark on goods outside the approved scope of use, a separate application for registration shall be filed.