{"id":3265,"date":"2024-11-28T23:10:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-28T15:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/east-ip.com\/?p=3265"},"modified":"2025-04-30T22:29:46","modified_gmt":"2025-04-30T14:29:46","slug":"suspension-of-pending-appeals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.east-ip.com\/zh\/insights\/suspension-of-pending-appeals\/","title":{"rendered":"Suspension of Pending Appeals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In June 2023, the TRAD adopted internal rules permitting the suspension of the appeals of refused applications on the basis that a proper resolution must await the results of cancellations, oppositions or invalidations against cited marks. See East IP memo on this development\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.east-ip.com\/zh\/insights\/rules-on-suspension-of-cases-before-the-trad-and-the-bipc\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"1363\">\u66f4\u591a\u4fe1\u606f\u53c2\u89c1\u6b64\u5904<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Shortly after the issuance of these rules , the Beijing Intellectual Property Court (BIPC), the first-instance court for trademark rejection appeals, also announced its own new pre-docketing practice (BIPC Pre-Docketing Practice) allowing suspensions in such cases for a period of up to 12 months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since 2024, the TRAD and courts have consistently implemented their suspension policies, thereby allowing trademark owners to avoid the cost and inconvenience of filing multiple \u201cback-up\u201d applications to retain a foothold on the register while awaiting resolution of related disputes over prior rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The BIPC Pre-Docketing Practice only applies where:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>the refusal appeal is based solely on relative grounds&nbsp;(i.e., citations of prior marks), and&nbsp;not on absolute grounds (e.g., descriptiveness, non-distinctiveness, negative impact on social morality, etc. \u2013 refusals which have recently become more commonplace);<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>the plaintiff has taken action against the cited mark(s) before the issuance of the TRAD\u2019s decision; and<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>the status of the cited mark(s) will substantively affect the disposition of the disputed mark.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The fact that the TMO is now looking more carefully at parties\u2019 filing histories is clearly a positive development, as this should help deter bad faith pirates from filing&nbsp;<em>en masse<\/em>&nbsp;for other parties\u2019 marks<em>.&nbsp;<\/em>However, brand owners seeking to purchase marks from pirates should keep in mind the risk of refusal by the TMO when developing their strategies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If, for tactical reasons, a brand owner elects to file trademark applications through a front company, it is strongly advisable to file through a company that is \u201cclean\u201d, i.e., one that does not have a significant record of trademark applications, particularly for third-party marks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In June 2023, the TRAD adopted internal rules permitting the suspension of the appeals of refused applications on the basis that a proper resolution must await the results of cancellations, oppositions or invalidations against cited marks. <\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1005,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"[]"},"categories":[15,19],"tags":[90,39,42],"class_list":["post-3265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insights","category-trademark","tag-rejections","tag-suspensions","tag-trademark-prosecution"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.east-ip.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.east-ip.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.east-ip.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.east-ip.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.east-ip.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3265"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.east-ip.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3430,"href":"https:\/\/www.east-ip.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3265\/revisions\/3430"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.east-ip.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.east-ip.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.east-ip.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.east-ip.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}