What should we pay attention to in Guangdong trademark registration?

First, the strategy of trademark registration: first registration is conducive to the protection of trademarks. Article 4 of China's Trademark Law stipulates: "If a natural person, legal person or other organization needs to obtain the exclusive right to use a trademark for the goods it produces, manufactures, processes, selects and distributes, it shall apply to the Trademark Office for trademark registration of the goods. Where a natural person, legal person or other organization needs to obtain the exclusive right to use a trademark for the services it provides, it shall apply to the Trademark Office for registration of a service trademark. In other words, in order to obtain the exclusive right to use a trademark and protect the goods of an enterprise, it is necessary to register and obtain the exclusive right to use a trademark. " Unregistered trademarks are always in a state of no rights protection, and may be banned from use at any time because others have approved the registration of the same or similar trademarks. There are endless cases of damage because there is no registered trademark.

Second, the creative strategy of trademark design: A variety of trademark patterns can be designed by combining trademarks with distinctive trademarks. According to Article 8 of the Trademark Law, "any visible sign that can distinguish the goods of natural persons, legal persons or other organizations from those of others, including words, graphics, letters, numbers, three-dimensional signs and color combinations, and the combination of the above elements, can apply for registration as a trademark." A trademark can be composed of six elements: words, figures, letters, numbers, three-dimensional signs and colors. How to design and choose the best scheme needs careful consideration. First of all, trademarks are combined with trade names. Trademarks are consistent with trade names, which can not only promote the trademarks of goods, but also promote enterprises, which is convenient for customers to remember. Using the trademarks of other enterprises as trade names is easy to cause disputes. For example, Mengniu Wine Industry uses Mengniu of Mengniu Dairy as the business name of the enterprise, causing disputes. Secondly, the combination of Chinese and English. In this way, China people can understand it and foreigners can understand it. English is used because there are many countries that use English, and it is easier to pass it internationally. The appearance of both Chinese and English in trademarks can save the cost of external expansion. Now is the era of globalization. Enterprises must reach a certain scale if they want to go to foreign markets. If they redesign a foreign trademark, they should pay more publicity and operating expenses. It is best to consider going to the international market for registered trademarks, so that they can take fewer detours. Third, the combination of words and graphics. In this way, even people who don't understand Chinese and English, or who don't watch carefully, can understand and remember that customers can't guess, and people don't have much time to guess. If they don't understand, they don't buy it at all. Finally, unified design and registration of characters, letters and graphics. For example, Baoxin Bird Group Co., Ltd., registered according to law, was recognized as a well-known trademark by the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, and was later infringed by a Hong Kong company. Professor Zheng, the first intellectual property owner in China, put forward: "It is suggested that Baoxin Bird Group Co., Ltd. also register the combined pictures, characters and pinyin as special trademarks (from the existing information, all three are registered separately). The purpose of doing this is to nip in the bud. Because, at present, the ways of trademark infringement are diversified. The disputes encountered by' Good News Bird Group Co., Ltd.' are very different from those in the past, and there may be more hidden and complicated infringement activities in the future. Therefore, in the comprehensive trademark strategy, we must also conceive more comprehensively. " The trademark of a design should be a creative work with strong distinctiveness. Trademarks should be easily distinguished from other commodities, such as the Great Wall and Shenzhou, which are easily confused with other trademarks and become trade names of other enterprises. Such a trademark is not unusable, but its meaning is not very strong. You can create your own new words as trademarks of enterprises, such as Galanz and Bosideng. The pattern should not be too complicated. Don't be identical with other trademarks, such as "Sanjiu" and "999". Don't use the common name or shape of the goods. For example, you can't apply for trademark registration with the pattern of "wine bottle". Of course, it must also comply with other provisions of laws and regulations, such as not using American names, British flags, Red Cross, Japanese devils and so on. As a trademark.

Third, the scope of trademark registration strategy: to register a trademark with a main category and multiple auxiliary categories in a defensive trademark, the scope of registration should be appropriately selected, that is, the appropriate category should be selected. According to the international classification of goods and services registered internationally, China has formulated a similar classification of goods and services used in China. The classification table of similar goods and services is divided into 45 categories, of which 1-34 is commodity category and 35-45 is service category. The category of trademark registration shall be determined. General enterprises should not only register a large category, but also register related categories, so that enterprises have room for expansion. Registering only one type of trademark will hinder the diversified development of enterprises. For example, the brand "Chundu" is named after ham sausage. According to the evaluation of relevant departments, the goodwill of this brand "Chundu" has reached 654.38+0.8 billion yuan. However, Chundu wanted to develop the beverage industry, and found that the relevant categories had been registered, so he had to give up and suffered losses. Many kinds of trademark registration can be called defensive trademark registration. The so-called defensive trademark means that the trademark owner registers several identical trademarks on different types of goods or services, with the main trademark as the basis for trademark registration and the rest as defensive trademarks. Although the Agreement on Trade-related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement) extends the protection scope of well-known trademarks to non-similar goods and services, the protection of well-known trademarks in TRIPS Agreement and China's trademark law tends to be ex post facto relief. Defensive trademark registration, which belongs to ex ante relief, is indeed of great benefit to enterprises.

Fourth, the regional registration strategy of trademarks: the transnational registration of trademarks is regional, and trademarks are also obviously regional. A registered trademark of one country is not necessarily a registered trademark of other countries. Tianjin parrot accordion finally opened the Japanese market, only to find that "parrot" has been registered by the Japanese and become a caged bird of the Japanese. Instead, the Japanese regard it as a "technology stock". Anyone who sells "parrot" in the Japanese market has to pay 15% of the trademark sales fee, so that manufacturers have to reluctantly change the "parrot brand" to "dragonfly brand". It is also reported that 65,438+05% of well-known trademarks in China are registered abroad, including more than 80 in Indonesia, nearly 65,438+000 in Japan and nearly 200 in Australia. Wuliangye in South Korea, Konka in the United States, Hisense in Germany and Kelon in Singapore all suffered the fate of registered trademarks. There are more than 100 cases of registered trademarks abroad in China every year. Among the "Top 500 Most Valuable Brands in China" published by the World Brand Lab last year, 46% were not registered in the United States, 50% were not registered in Australia, 54% were not registered in Canada, and the unregistered rate in the European Union was as high as 76%. At present, most countries and regions in the world adopt the principle of prior registration, and trademark protection is regional. Therefore, whether a registered enterprise abandons its original trademark to create a new brand, repurchases it at a high price, or revokes its registered trademark through legal channels, it will increase the operating cost of the enterprise, delay the time for its products to occupy the market, reduce its market share, and even withdraw from the market. Therefore, if an enterprise is growing in China with good development momentum and wants to enter the international market, it should register its trademark in developed countries and target markets as soon as possible after determining a trademark as the main trademark.

Verb (abbreviation of verb) joint trademark strategy for trademark registration: enterprises that register multiple trademarks for the same commodity can register joint trademarks. A joint trademark refers to a number of identical or similar trademarks registered by the same trademark owner on the same or similar goods, some of which are similar in words and some in graphics. These trademarks are called joint trademarks. This kind of similar trademark shall not be used after registration, and its purpose is to prevent others from counterfeiting or registering, so as to protect their own trademarks more effectively. A joint trademark is based on one of the trademarks and is called the main trademark, also known as the original trademark. Due to the particularity of the function and function of joint trademarks, one of them is idle and generally will not be revoked by the State Trademark Office. Joint trademarks can be registered in batches by trademark applicants, but they cannot be transferred or licensed separately.

The main and secondary trademark strategy of trademark registration of intransitive verbs: brand extension by registering secondary trademarks. A main trademark and a deputy trademark refer to multiple trademarks registered on the same commodity, one is the main trademark that reflects the corporate image on various commodities, and the other is the deputy trademark (also called subordinate trademark) used on specific commodities. The main trademark is used to establish and improve the reputation of various products, and the sub-trademark is used to imply the use, function, composition and quality of specific products, which complement each other. Major enterprises mainly adopt large and small trademark strategies, such as Toyota, Toshiba, Hitachi and Sony in Japan. For example, Toyota uses major and minor trademarks such as "Toyota Crown", "Toyota Coast" and "Toyota Sea Lion" on cars. In China, the appearance of sub-trademarks is a comprehensive brand represented by Haier and Midea in the 1990s. They don't want to spend a lot of money to build an independent advantage trademark in the situation of serialization and market segmentation of products in washing machines, air conditioners, color TVs and other fields. In order to share the assets of dominant trademarks and highlight the different functions and personalities of series products, they changed the tradition of naming products only by product category or model and composition, and designed interesting and friendly names for specific products as sub-trademarks. For example, Haier's refrigerator with handsome appearance and advanced functions is called "handsome prince" and the small refrigerator is called "little prince", which has won the favor of the market. Sub-trademark is based on a successful main trademark, which is essentially a trademark extension strategy. It needs to use consumers' trust and loyalty to the existing successful main trademarks to promote the sales of sub-trademark products and gain market advantages.

Seven. Renewal strategy of trademark registration: not everything is good after trademark registration, and it should be renewed every 10 year. If the insurance is not renewed within the renewal period, it will be cancelled and no longer protected. Many trademarks in China were cancelled because they missed the renewal. For example, the "dragon brand" villain produced by Pinghu Food Factory was founded in Yongzheng period of Qing Dynasty and won the medal of Panama World Expo. Its products are exported to Southeast Asia. At the end of 1993, the famous trademark was lost because it failed to apply for renewal in time. Nearly 70% of the more than 400 expired brand trademarks in Suzhou have not been renewed. And these more than 400 trademarks have now become registered trademarks of "children without mother's pain" enterprises, and they should be renewed when they expire to prevent them from being cancelled or registered by other enterprises.

Eight. The preemptive strategy of trademark registration: preempting trademarks to prevent strangling competitors. To be bigger and stronger, there will be many competitors. In order to stop or even crush competitors, enterprises should look for their own weaknesses in all directions. Hisense's trademark was registered by Siemens in Germany, which is a typical example. Hisense was initiated by Hisense Group on 1992, registered on 12 on 1993, and used as an official trademark and trade name in the same year. 199965438+1On October 5th, Hisense Group's "Hisense" and "Hisense" trademarks were officially recognized as well-known trademarks by the Trademark Office of China State Administration for Industry and Commerce. Six days later,199965438+1October 1 1, Bosch &: Siemens applied for "Hisense" as the registered trademark of the designated goods in Germany. At that time, he applied for Madrid international trademark registration and European trademark registration, and claimed priority, which completely blocked Hisense's trademark registration in Europe. After Bosch & Siemens registered the "Hisense" trademark, it was not used in products on a large scale, but was shelved. However, Hisense's plasma TV, LCD TV, inverter air conditioner and other products can't enter the German market properly because of registered trademarks. Siemens also sued Hisense for trademark infringement in Germany. Five years later, Siemens reached a settlement with Hisense and transferred the registered trademark, but Siemens successfully delayed Hisense's entry into the German and even European markets for five years, weakening its competitors. In the field of trademark registration, you can register trademarks that competitors have not registered. If a competitor has no registered trademark in China, the enterprise can apply for registration; If a competitor only registers one category, the enterprise can register the related categories that the enterprise has developed or will develop; If it is not registered abroad, it can be registered internationally. This can prevent competitors from attacking, reduce their market share, and even make them lose the market, thus bringing opportunities for the development of this enterprise.

Nine. Network domain name combination strategy of trademark registration: building a platform to promote and protect trademarks and products in the information age. With the rapid development of global information network industry, there are huge economic benefits behind domain names. Enterprise names and registered trademark names should be registered in time as a platform for promoting and protecting trademarks and products. Otherwise, the domain name is easy to be registered, and enterprises will pay a high price. For example, Google, the global Internet search giant, bought back the CN domain names Google.com.cn and Google.cn that were registered by others several years ago with a huge sum of1000000, which set the highest transaction price in the history of CN domain names. According to the "Regulations on the Administration of Domain Name Registration of China Internet Network Information Center", except for domain names that are mainly related to public interests, such as domain names restricted by government agencies and regions and third-level domain names with gov, free registration is not allowed, and according to the characteristics of the Internet itself, other domain names follow the principle of "first application, first registration". Once a domain name is maliciously registered for the purpose of hype, it is not only time-consuming and laborious, but also difficult to recover. Therefore, enterprises should enhance the awareness of domain name protection, register all domain names related to enterprise trademarks as soon as possible, avoid domain name disputes, and prevent criminals from confusing the real with the fake. Enterprise trademark registration can adopt the above nine strategies, build a dominant and self-protective trademark attack and defense network, and make enterprises invincible in the cruel market competition.

I hope I can help you adopt it.