The draft amendments to the Trademark Law were submitted to the third session of the Twelfth NPC Standing Committee for the second review on June 26. It is reported that the new draft has new requirements in cracking down on trademark infringement and improving protection for well-known trademarks.

Change 1: Maximum statutory damages of trademark Infringement reaches 2 million Yuan

Following the initial draft amendments to the Trademark Law which increased statutory damages of trademark infringement from 500,000 Yuan to 1 million Yuan, the second draft submitted this time further increases this upper limit to 2 million.

Change 2: The well-known trademarks are prohibited for advertising

To avoid misleading effect on consumers, the draft amendment to the Trademark Law submitted for the second review requires that, manufacturers and operators shall not use words like “well-known trademark” on the goods, packages or containers, or use in advertisements, exhibitions and other commercial activities.

Change 3: The time limit of registration examination is shortened to 9 months

After study, the NPC Law Committee proposed to add requirements on examianation time limit in the draft amendments to the Trademark Law: the time limit for registration examination by the Trademark Office is nine months, the time limit for publication is three months, the time limit for investigating and verifying an opposition is nine months, the time limit for reviewing the Trademark Office’s decision of rejecting any application by the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board is six months, the time limit for reviewing the Trademark Office’s decision of rejecting any registration opposition is nine months; under special circumstances calling for extension, the limits may be reasonably extended upon approval by the department for industry and commerce of the State Council.

Change 4: Regulation on single color trademark registration is deleted

The draft amendment to the Trademark Law submitted to the 30th session of the 11th standing committee of NPC for preliminary review in December last year had a provision that, single color can be applied for registration as trademark. But the second draft submitted to the 3rd session of the 12th standing committee of NPC deleted this provision.

Recently, the National Plan on Construction of Independent Innovation Capacity in the “Twelfth Five-year” issued by the State Council puts forward clear requirements on China's capacity for independent innovation and innovation is becoming a hot word under national attention. Almost at the same time, the National Bureau of Statistics published the China Innovation Index Research (2005-2011) for the first time, which shows that based on the original 100 points in 2005, in 2011 China innovation index reaches 139.6 points, with an average annual growth of 5.7%; China innovation capacity has being improved steadily since 2005 with positive progress in terms of innovation environment, innovation input, innovation output and innovation performance, etc.

Upon approval of the Central Politics and Law Committee, the Annual Report of China’s Construction on Rule of Law 2012, written by China Law Society, was published on 25th this month, which is the fifth consecutive year that China published annual report on its construction on rule of law.

The Report summarizes China’s construction on rule of law in 2012 from ten aspects: legislation, administration in accordance with law, judicial administration, legal supervision, guarantee for rule of law, protection of intellectual property rights, construction on rule of law, publicity of law, education and study of law as well as international exchanges and cooperation, etc.

As disclosed in the Report, the State Intellectual Property Office has carried out raid actions on patent enforcement during the process of circulation and production, handling 2,510 cases of patent disputes (including 2,232 cases of patent infringement disputes, and 278 other patent disputes) and 6,512 cases of counterfeit patent, which in total reaches 9,022 cases with 199% increase as comparing to that of last year.

According to the latest data published by the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, in the first half of this year, there are 5,088,500 of all kinds of market entities are newly registered; examination of application for trademark registration reaches 659,900 cases and trademark review reaches 21,300 cases; and 22,800 cases of trademark infringement have been filed with case value of 230 million Yuan.

Per introduction, the implementation focus of China trademark strategy gradually changes to effective use and lawful protection of trademark . At the same time, enforcement against trademark infringement has also made new progress.