The State Administration Council (SAC) announced 1st April 2023 as the effective date of the Trademark Law 2019 (TML 2019).
The Intellectual Property Department (IPD) allowed re-filing of registered and used trademarks and filing of new trademarks under the TML 2019. The IPD is now examining trademark applications under the normal basis and the examination procedure set out in the TML 2019 and the relevant Trademark Rules announced by the Ministry of Commerce.
As at the end of March 2024, around 70,000 applications have been re-filed for the trademarks already registered under the old trademark law and newly filed for new trademarks with the IPD under the TML 2019. After the formality requirement and absolute ground examinations of each application, the IPD publishes the application for the opposition purposes.
The IPD issued the first Trademark Journal No. TM/2024/01 dated 1st May 2024 to publish the first batch of the trademark applications for the opposition purposes. For this first batch of the published trademark applications, an interested party can file an opposition against each published trademark application within 60 days from the publication date of 1st May 2024.
The IPD has also allowed clearance / pre-filing trademark searches on the database of the IPD.
