The China Trademark Office of State Administration for Industry and Commerce first refused, with respect to our Indian client, the trademark application for the mark "E Construction Equipment". Then our client successfully asked for a review of its trademark application which has been approved by the China Trademark Review and Adjudication Board.

Brief information about the case:

Our Indian client belongs to the Escorts Group and uses the trademark "E Construction Equipment". In this mark, the letter "E" has been presented as the main sign and "Construction Equipment" just as a background combination of words. The Chinese Trademark Office rejected the said trademark application on the ground that the mark has a lack of distinctiveness when used on the designated goods.

Under Chinese trademark law, a mark is not allowed to be registered if it only contains the generic names, generic symbols, or if it merely indicates the main raw material, function, use, weight, etc on the goods to be designated, or if the mark is devoid of any distinctive character.

Then, we represented our client and filed a review application against the refusal within the China Trademark Appeal Board. In the review, we argued that "E Construction Equipment" is a unique and distinctive trademark conforms to the client's business tradition, created by the applicant itself, used for a long time with a high reputation worldwide. Among which, "E" derives from the client's trade name, it is a well-designed logo and it is easily recognized by the public. Therefore, the whole logo is distinctive enough to be recognized and registered as a trademark in China.

The Trademark Appeal Board of China decided that our grounds were tenable and approved the examination of the trademark. Thereby, our Indian client has cleared the obstacle of trademark registration in China.

Attorney's comments:

As mentioned before, in China, capital letters/generic symbols and those indicating the characteristics of the goods to be designated will not be approved for registration. In this case, the distinctiveness of the trademark had to be proved in order to be registered in China. Regarding the trademark registrations in other countries, they are not the foundation for obtaining the registration in China because the trademark registration is based on the territorial feature. However, the foreign registrations for the captioned mark may be useful for the review in China.

To conclude, it is recommended to use a mark with distinctive logos and characters. It should be noted that the registration in other countries and regions cannot be the main evidence to prove the distinctiveness of the mark during the review. Also, it is advisable to use the mark as much as possible to increase the distinctiveness.