Clearing the trademark backlog

The State Administration for Industry and Commerce has announced that the examination period for trademark applications has been reduced to 10 months, which is comparable to the time taken by the trademark offices of the United States and Japan. In addition, the examination period for opposition and dispute cancellation applications has been reduced to 18 months.

The volume of trademark applications first began to exceed the number of examined applications in 2000, gradually resulting in an examination backlog. The problem became acute and raised public concern in 2007, when it took more than three years for an application to be examined. Since 2008 the Trademark Office has taken a series of measures and made continued efforts to improve examination efficiency, reducing the examination period to less than one year by the end of 2010, and now to 10 months.

The total number of trademark applications has reached 9.576 million, with the accumulated number of registered trademarks reaching 6.559 million, ranking China first in the world.