Is It Possible For A Trademark Registration To Be Free?

"Internet + shopping" has made Taobao and Jingdong. "Internet + catering" has been born in the US and hungry. "Internet + travel" has created Ctrip and road cattle.

"Internet +" has pformed traditional industries with its golden power.

The law has also sparked sparks when it comes to the Internet.

In particular, trademark law service has sprung up after catching up with the Internet Express.

The Internet not only changes the business form of trademark legal services, but also gradually changes its business mode. The most obvious is the two word - "free", especially the free trade mark registration service.

No other era, like the Internet age, lets us enjoy so many free services.

But can we enjoy the free lunch of trademark registration? Let's take a look at the "free registered trademark" bill.

Generally speaking, the cost of trademark registration has two parts: money cost and time cost.

Among them, the cost of money is no more than two parts: official fees and agency fees.

Official fees refer to the fees charged by the trademark office.

According to the Trademark Bureau's charging standard, a trademark registration is a large category. If there are no more than 10 goods / services, the charge will be 600 yuan, and 60 yuan more for each product / service.

Each trademark must be registered on the designated commodity service category. China will divide all kinds of Commodity services into 45 major categories, and they are subdivided into many sub categories under different categories. Trademark applicants should choose their registration categories according to their own business scope.

Agency fee refers to the intermediary service fee paid to the Trademark Agency (law firm or intellectual property company).

The service charge of each trademark ranges from 90 yuan to 1500 yuan.

Second, the time cost of trademark registration is usually about a year.

There are three important time points for trademark registration: trademark application day, trademark office preliminary announcement date, trademark registration date.

According to

"Stipulates that, from the date of receipt of the application document, the Trademark Office shall complete the examination within nine months and make a public announcement of the trademark that is in conformity with the requirements.

That is to say, from the date of application to the date of first instance announcement, there are about nine months.

Within three months from the date of the first notice, the trademark will be registered if there is no objection from the third party.

That is, from the date of first instance announcement to the date of registration, there are at least three months.

In total, it takes about a year for a trademark to be registered successfully.

However, it should be noted that "one year" is limited to the successful registration of trademark green light.

If a trademark is rejected and a retrial is made or a third party raises objection, it will probably lead to an increase in the time of trademark application by one year.

According to the above, the official fee is charged by the State Trademark Office and cannot be avoided.

The so-called "free registered trademark" is at most exempt from the intermediary service fee of the trademark agency.

The free registration of some agencies in order to attract customers mainly refers to the provision of free trademark registration agency services.

Although the trademark law stipulates that Chinese enterprises or natural persons can apply for themselves, prudent applicants will choose to appoint professional agencies. The reason is that trademark applications need to comply with various statutory conditions, submit various application documents, and involve many trademark laws and regulations. Only when applying under the guidance of professional agencies can the risk be successfully avoided and registered.

Therefore, the quality of service of the agency is crucial to the successful registration of trademarks.

According to the requirements of the basic professional quality in the trademark industry, the work that the trademark agency must do before and after applying for a registered trademark includes the following points:

One is the examination before application.

It includes the prohibition of legal examination, the examination of trademark significant qualification and the approximate examination of conflict with prior rights.

First of all, the formulation of trademark names must not violate the law prohibition.

Trademarks prohibited under the Trademark Law shall not be registered.

For example, the national flag, national emblem, Zhongnanhai and other administrative organs.

Second, trademark registration must conform to the saliency.

In accordance with the requirements of the trademark law,

It can not be the general name of a commodity, nor can it directly represent the quality of goods, raw materials, models, etc., but before the application, a professional agent is required to judge the saliency.

Finally, the trademark must satisfy the objective requirement of distinguishing the source of goods and services, and can not be similar to other online trademarks.

Because one of the important functions of trademarks is to distinguish the source of goods, similar commodity services can not have similar trademarks at the same time, otherwise, it is easy to mislead consumers and produce market confusion.

Because our country adopts the principle of first application, Whoever applies first is allowed to register. Therefore, the most important thing in the preliminary work of trademark application is approximate query, that is, whether someone else has registered with similar commodity service and identified himself as a trademark.

Approximate query requires a complete trademark database, accurate approximate retrieval conditions, and experienced professional trademark agents can carry out quality and quantity, and will cost a lot of time and energy.

The two is the perfection of the application.

Including the preparation and submission of application documents, and the official fees paid to the trademark office.

Three is the timely notification work after application.

trademark

After being accepted, the applicant can not use the registered trademark in a normal and lawful way in the business. After the trademark examination is passed, the preliminary notice will be issued. If no third people ask for objection, the applicant will be able to successfully register the trademark.

In view of the subjectivity of the trademark approximate judgment and the lag of the application information released by the Trademark Office, if the trademark is indeed rejected, it is necessary for the agent to put forward reasonable legal advice and suggestions to guide the customers to safeguard their rights properly.

The above work requires professional judgement before and after applying for a registered trademark, especially the approximate examination before application.

The cost of the initial application of trademark application is not small, so the so-called free agency service is difficult to achieve the desired quality.

If the trademark agency fails to fulfill its duty, it will be difficult to register the trademark only if it is completed according to the instructions of the applicant.

If the trademark is rejected or fails in the dissenting proceedings, the applicant will lose the official fees entirely. Even if all kinds of re examination are initiated, it is necessary to pay the official fees and agency fees, and bear huge time losses.

It can be seen that the non responsible free trademark agency service may not be able to guarantee the quality. In addition to paying the normal registration cost, the parties may also have to pay more money and time for the negative cost.

Applicants should be treated with caution when they meet a free trademark registration lunch, so as to avoid losing their money and losing their money.