Source: China IP News

Latest statistics from the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) show that China handled 3.691 million trademark applications in 2016, remaining world's largest for 15 consecutive years. Meanwhile, Guangdong, Beijing, Zhejiang, Shanghai and Jiangsu are the top five applicants.

Thanks to the implement of the reform for trademark registration, trademark registrations increased by 28.4% in 2016, compared with 26.9% in 2015. Among all the registrations, 3.001 million were filed via Internet, representing 81.3% of the total, the percentage in 2015 is 69.3%. As of the end of 2016, valid trademark registrations amounted to 12.376 million. Eeach 10,000 market entities obtained 1,422 trademarks, increased by 6.5% from 1,335 in 2015. It is worth mentioning that 2016 witnessed fast growth of trademark pledge registrations. In 2016, China handled 1,410 trademark registrations (up 20% ), helping the enterprises financing 64.99 billion yuan, up 90%.

Numbers showed that top five trademark applicants were Guangdong province (689,434), Beijing (372,387), Zhejiang province (327,572), Shanghai (257,616) and Jiangsu province (209,900). Among which Zhejiang filed its first 300,000 applications and Jiangsu filed its first 200,000. Compared with 2015, the top 5 remains the same.

Compared with 2015, Sichuan province and Henan province filed its first own 100,000 registrations respectively in 2016. Provinces which filed 100,000 to 200,000 applications were Shandong province (184,490), Fujian province (175,392), Henan province (129,946) and Sichuan province (126,300). Numbers also showed that Guangdong province(2,043,798), Zhejiang province(1,315,742), Beijing(893,743), Jiangsu province(743,670) and Shanghai (697,251) were top five regions which have the most valid  trademark registrations, and Guangdong have its first 2 million valid trademark registrations.

The achievements should be attributed to deepening reform for policies. For a long time, the State Council has requested to deepen administrative reform and transform government functions, such as streamlining administration, delegating power, strengthening regulation and improving services. Under these guidelines, SAIC carried out reform for improving trademark registration efficiency.

As efforts to resolve existing problems on trademark registration and management, SAIC released opinions on advancing trademark registration facilitation on July 14, 2016. The paper was designed to simplicate trademark registration procedure to expand trademark registration channels, to improve examination efficiency and to improve trademark related public service and to boost brand economy development.

On October 30, 2016, SAIC approved 13 industrial and commercial administrative departments and market supervision departments to set up trademark registration acceptance windows, which came into operation on November 1 the same year. From then on, the applicants could file trademark registration without having to go far. Functions of these acceptance windows cover trademark registration acceptance for designated areas, fees collection, accepting and examining registration files, determining registration date, trademark registration certificate distribution, inquiring and consulting services.

On December 1, Guangzhou center for trademark examination cooperation came into operation. Functions of Guangzhou center covers trademark registration acceptance, consulting, trademark examination and trademark laws popularization. It is also responsible for guiding local trademark protection, promoting regional trademark strategy implement, trademark registration examination, so as to shorten examination cycle, easing the burden of the applicants and providing better service.  (by Wang Guohao)