Ray Lei Zhao
Partner
Unitalen
Recently, the Chinese Trademark Office issued the annual development report of China brand and strategy in 2017. According to this report, in 2017, China's trademark applications maintain continuous and rapid growth. The total trademark filing number was 5.748 million with an increase of 55.72 percent year on year. The national filing number was 5.539 million, accounting for 96.36 percent of the total filing number.
In addition, in 2017 the total number of international applications designating China was 26148. China has been ranked as most popular designation country before World Intellectual Property Office for 13 consecutive years.
The total number of the cumulated and valid international registrations is 252,000; the total number of substantial examination finished for territorial extension is 54,876, a year-on-year increase of 12.6 percent, following with international modifications 11191, deletion 708, transfer 7991, partial transfer 191, correction of 1286, partial cancellation of renewal 1166, 9106, withdrawal 118.
By the end of December 2017, the Trademark Office approved 3906 pieces of the geography indication marks, which is 12.9 times of 301 pieces approved in the end of 2007.
There are in total 4.897 million trademark filed trough online system in 2017, accounting for 85 percent of the total filings, increased by 4 percent over 2016 (81 percent) of the same period in 2016. With e-filing it effectively reduced the stock of paper files.
Up to the end of December 2017, China has 27.842 million trademark filings in total, 17.301 million accumulated registrations, 14.92 million valid registrations. China is the top filer for 16 years in a row in the world. Since 2001, China exceeded the United States and become the top filer country.
The growth rate for trademark filing is even higher than GDP growth rate. China has become the important force to promote the growth of global trademark intellectual property rights.
From the designated goods or services of all applications we could see that top five classes are class 35 which is 626,000, class 25 which is 538,000, class 9 which is 334,000, class 30 which is 332,000, and class 43 which is 259,000.
It shows that business services, clothing, equipment, food are the most popular industries for trademark application in China.
It also shows that the total filing number of service mark is 1.846 million, accounting for 32.11 percent of the total filings. Total filings numbers of service mark have been dramatically increasing in recent years.
From the designated goods or services of applications filed by foreign individual and entities, we could see that top five classes are class 9 which is 19,000, class 35 which is 14,000, class 3 which is 13,000, class 25 which is 11,000, and class 5 which is 9,796.
It shows that equipment, business services, cosmetics, clothing, medicine are the most popular for foreign trademark applicants in China.
Among all the national applications filed by Chinese individual and entities in 2017, Guangdong province is top filer with 1.095 million applications, Zhejiang province is ranked as no. 2 with 547,000 applications, and Beijing is ranked no. 3 with 490,000 applications, following with Jiangsu 353,000, Shanghai 344,000. The sum of the number of the five provinces is more than half of the total filing number, up to 51.07 percent.
Among all the national applications filed by foreign individual and entities in 2017, the United States of America is top filer with 44,000 applications, Japan is ranked as no. 2 with 20,000 applications, and Germany is ranked as no. 3 with 19,000, following with South Korea 16,000, the United Kingdom 15,800, France 11,000, Switzerland 8,286, Italy 7,945, Australia 7,921 and Belgium 6,763. The sum of the number of the above 10 countries is 74.75% of the total foreign applications in China.
According to the World Intellectual Property Organization, in 2017 Chinese applicants filed 4810 application through Madrid protocol, up 59.6 percent from a year earlier, ranked as the third place. This is first time that international applications from China exceed more than 4,000, hit a record high, ranking in the top three for the first time. By the end of 2017, the cumulated valid registrations are 25,000, which is 2736 more than the end of 2016.
It shows that Chinese enterprises are building consciousness for overseas trademark protection, which is the acceleration of "going out".
But compared with the total filing number in 2017, the brand of "going out" accounted for about 0.08% of the total filing number, brand internationalization in China remains to be improved.
There are only 37 Chinese brands selected in 2017 annual world’s 500 most influential brands released by the World Brand Laboratory,. Even though it is 37 times in 2004, 2009 more than 2 times, 1.5 times that of 2013.
Data shows that with the deepening of the brand strategy implementation, brand protection consciousness has been gradually set up and Chinese brand’s influence has been gradually increased in the world.
Although we could see there are more Chinese brands selected in the ranking, as the world's second-largest economy, the status in China does not match with the development of brand power. In 2017, for example, the united States occupy the 233 seats of the top 500, has been continuously ranked as the first place for 14 years.
Among all the international applications filed by Chinese individual and entities in 2017, we could see that top three classes are class 9 for “laptop, instruments, storage media”, class 7 for “machines and machine tools, the motor engine”, and class 25 for “clothing, shoes, hats”, which actually match with the main export Chinese products “electronics, machinery, and garments”.
The major designated countries or regions are the United States of America, Europe, Japan and India, etc., which shows that China attaches great importance to the developed markets, but at the same time, also pay more and more attention to the potential market in emerging countries.