Newsletter
GUIDELINES FOR JOINT TRADEMARK APPLICATIONS ANNOUNCED
In the past, the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) did not accept trademark registration applica-tions jointly filed by multiple applicants. How-ever, the IPO announced its Guidelines for Joint Trademark Applications on 13 July 2006 to al-low a trademark to be jointly owned by multiple rights holders.
The main content of the Guidelines is as follows:
An application for registration of a jointly owned trademark, or for recordation of the assignment of a mark into joint ownership, should be filed in the names of all the joint owners. If no trademark agent has been ap-pointed, the applicants should designate one of the joint owners as their representative (for receiving documents); otherwise, the IPO will take the first-named applicant in the order of their names on the application document as the representative, and will notify the other applicants when sending documents.
Among all kinds of applications regarding a jointly owned trademark rights, only the re-newal applications to extend the registration of a jointly owned trademark may be filed in the name by any of the joint owners for the benefit of all, and all other kinds of applica-tions must be filed in the names of all the joint owners. These include applications for regis-tration, assignment, licensing, recordation of pledge, division of trademark rights, amend-ment of application/registration details, and abandonment.
An application for restriction of the scope of designated goods or services, division or abandonment of trademark rights, or amend-ment of the non-individual portions of the ap-plication/registration details, must be sup-ported by statements of consent signed by all of the joint owners.
The official fees for all types of applications regarding jointly owned trademark rights are the same as the fees for applications from a single applicant. When registration is granted for a jointly owned trademark, only one reg-istration certificate will be issued.