On December 28 2017 the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board (TRAB) launched an online searchable database, which – according to the TRAB's December 14 2017 announcement – will make its decisions publicly available.

This announcement follows the December 2016 initiative which saw the TRAB publish a number of randomly selected decisions each month.

The database aims to make a greater number of TRAB decisions publicly available in order to increase transparency. Decisions will be published on the site within 20 working days from being issued to the relevant parties.

In general, decisions will be published where they were rendered to conclude a review or adjudication procedure, including decisions on:

  • reviews of refusals;
  • reviews of oppositions;
  • declarations of invalidation;
  • reviews of declarations of invalidation; and
  • reviews of cancellations.

Decisions will not be published if:

  • they involve a party's trade secret or personal privacy;
  • a party explicitly requests the decision's non-disclosure and the TRAB finds such request reasonable; or
  • other peculiar circumstances lead the TRAB to believe that it would be inappropriate to publish the decision.

According to TRAB Director Zhao Gang, as of November 2017, the agency had accepted 182,400 cases, of which 154,700 concerned reviews of refusals (up 42.08% year-on-year). The remaining 27,600 cases concerned both parties (also known as 'other cases', up 20.50% year-on-year). Among these cases, 151,000 cases had been concluded, including 128,700 reviews of refusals (up 53.75% year-on-year) and 22,300 other cases (up 16.08% year-on-year).

For further information on this topic please contact Nan Jiang or Huimin Qin at Wanhuida Peksung by telephone (+86 10 6892 1000) or email ([email protected] or [email protected]). The Wanhuida Peksung website can be accessed at www.wanhuida.com and www.peksung.com.

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