Research On Registered Trademark Revocation System

The registered trademark revocation system is not established clearly. Article44and article45in the Trademark Law，and relevant provisions in the ImplementingRegulations of the Trademark Law build a rudiment of the system. The NationalPeople’s Congress passed the Draft Amendment to Trademark Law on Dec.28th2012,which amended and perfected this revocation system. But the current trademarklegislation has many problems, such as a word “revoke” has two meanings in differentsystems, revocation causes are inaccurate and not comprehensive. These problemscould affect the correct application of the trademark law, and go against protectingbenefits of trademark righter, consumers and public.Based on sorting out problems of current registered trademark revocation system,analyzing current legislation and judicial precedents, and drawing lessons frominternational legislation system and relevant cases, this paper analyzes the registeredtrademark revocation system systematically. This paper affirms that the trademarkfunction of identification is the basic of revocation system and whether plays thefunction or whether hinders the function is the basic criterion whether revokes atrademark or not. This paper is divided into five parts:The first part sorts out problems of our registered trademark revocation system.Based on current legislation and judicial precedents, this part elaborates that ourrevocation system has many problems, such as the system extension definition is not clearly, the system is not established on trademark function of identification,definition of trademark use is not clear, revocation causes are inaccurate and notcomprehensive, our revocation system has no provisions about reasonablejustification and the procedure of the system is to long.The second part analyzes trademark use in our registered trademark revocationsystem. This part defines the system extension, affirms that trademark righter shoulduse the registered trademark in commercial activities and the trademark use should bereal, legal and public use. Also this part clears the eligible trademark user in therevocation system.The third part analyzes the revocation causes of the registered trademarks. Thispart divides the causes into four categories, including revocation for nonuse,revocation for non-standard use, revocation for trademark function of qualityguarantee and other revocation causes. This part makes a concrete analysis ofdifferent causes in order to clear revocation causes and relevant provisions of theregistered trademarks.The fourth part analyzes procedure issues of the registered trademarks. This partstraightens out overall procedures of the system and analyzes “two administrativelevels and two judicial levels” model which is used in current legislation. Also thispart clears many issues, such as subjects of revocation application, observation periodof trademark revocation, application of instructing correct within a time limit and theverdict’s force of law.The fifth part summarizes legislative proposals about setting a separate chapter“Revocation Invalidation and Cancellation” and amending specific legislation basedon raising and analyzing questions. The amending specific legislation includesclearing use of trademark, perfecting revocation causes, adding reasonablejustification, and improving the procedure issues.