On March 9, the third consultation session on intellectual property for exporters is held
A representative of a Belarusian exporter was interested in the question of the possibility of obtaining an "Oriental" trademark.
During the course of clarifications was clarified the desire of a Belarusian manufacturer of clothes with national Belarusian motifs and Belarusian features to supply its products to China.
The answer was formed on a brief highlighting of the possibilities of trademark registration in China, based on the national and international systems.
China grants legal protection to trademarks of foreign applicants under the national and international (Madrid) systems.
There is no independent regional "Oriental" trademark system in China.
On April 26, 2021, in International Intellectual Property Day, the trademark Agreement, service marks and appellations of origin of goods of the Eurasian Economic Union of February 3, 2020, entered into force. The Agreement is a fundamental document for the formation of a regional system of trademarks, service marks and appellations of origin of goods of the EAEU.
This system unites 5 countries of the Union: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia. As can be seen, China is not included in this regional entity.
This system is not yet operational, as the national legal acts of the participating countries are being aligned with this international agreement. In particular, our country is currently coordinating changes and additions to the Regulation on the procedure for registration of trademark and service mark, which will be accepted by a resolution of the Council of Ministers.
There are two ways to obtain a trademark registration in China: either a national application or an international registration with WIPO with the designation of the CNR.
The Chinese national application is submitted in Chinese and requires a representative as a local attorney. Applicant should communicate for the application in either Chinese or English. There are almost no Russian-speaking attorneys in China, even less Belarusian-speaking ones.
In China, it is most advantageous to register a trademark under the international system. If the Madrid system is applied for in Kazakhstan or India at the same time, the costs will be much lower than applying in these countries independently, since the national systems require submission of an application through local patent attorneys.
The legislation allows Belarusian applicants to file an international trademark application with WIPO, including in China, through a Belarusian attorney, the correspondence on which will be first with the Belarusian patent office and then (which is not always) with the International Bureau of the World Intellectual Property Organization.
