Curb trademark squatting and encourage innovation and development

Ye Ziwei, Wuhan University Law School

The level of legal protection of trademarks is closely related to encouraging independent innovation of brands and promoting high-quality economic development, and malicious squatting and hoarding of trademarks violate the principle of good faith and seriously disrupt the order of trademark registration and fair competition in the market, and urgently need to be addressed

The rectification of malicious hoarding of trademarks and malicious squatting of trademarks has always been an important task to strengthen the rule of law in market supervision

The frequent occurrence and easy occurrence of malicious trademark squatting shows that it is a long-term project to curb trademark squatting and encourage innovation and development

"Strict application" requires the correct application of the law, taking the law as the criterion, and accurately identifying and cracking down on malicious squatting of trademarks within the discretionary limits allowed by the law.

"Strict prevention" requires that while paying attention to the post-event regulation of malicious squatting of trademarks, it is also necessary to improve the prior prevention system

The most direct way to raise the threshold for trademark registration is to increase the fees for trademark registration applications

In addition to adjusting the application fee for trademark registration, adding requirements for trademark use in trademark registration applications is also an effective way to prevent malicious squatting of trademarks

"Severe punishment" requires aggravating the legal liability of malicious squatting of trademarks and exerting the deterrent effect of the law

To create a social atmosphere of honesty and credibility of trademark registration is the fundamental strategy to deal with malicious squatting of trademarks

Creating a good atmosphere for trademark registration not only needs to make the public aware of the harm and injustice of malicious squatting, so as to be ashamed, but also needs to make the majority of operators truly realize that "following famous brands" and "free riding" are not long-term.

"China Food News" (version 3, June 17, 2022)

(Editor-in-charge: Zhou Yan)