Authored by:Zhou Xiaoli （Cissy） Sun Huanhuan Zhou Xinyi
On January 13, 2023, China National Intellectual Property Administration published the Draft Amendment to the Trademark Law of the People’s Republic of China (Draft for Comments) and solicited public opinions. This will be the Fifth Amendment to the Trademark Law of the People’s Republic of China since its effectiveness as of March 1, 1983. Four amendments have been made to the Trademark Law respectively in 1993, 2001, 2013 and 2019. However, with further development of the socialist market economy, market players now have a greater awareness of intellectual property protection and attach more importance to branding, which has in turn spurred huge trademark-related demands and brought about a series of issues. In this context, the Draft Amendment makes a number of significant or even game-changing adjustments to the current Trademark Law, such as the additional requirements and provisions on submission of explanations on use, prohibition of duplicate registration, prohibition of bad-faith trademark registration applications and corresponding punishment mechanism, application for invalidation on relative grounds and for trademark transfer, responsibilities and obligations of trademark agencies, new remedies for trademark infringements, protection of well-known trademarks, regulation with credit records, and measures for trademark brand building.