1. If the dispute is caused by internal problems of the enterprise, it belongs to the category of civil legal disputes, and the parties themselves need to safeguard their rights and interests through judicial proceedings.
2. Where the trademark transfer application is being reviewed by the Trademark Office, the Trademark Office will give the parties a reasonable period of time to handle it;
3. If a trademark dispute involves legal authority, the parties can only apply to the court to take evidence preservation measures, temporarily freeze the execution of the rights after the trademark transfer, and finally resolve the dispute through litigation.
4. If the trademark belongs to the problem of illegal transfer such as counterfeiting, it needs the local public security department to carry out criminal appraisal and then go through judicial procedures.
5. If the Trademark Office? Do not accept? 、? Not approved? Administrative disputes such as administrative rulings can be resolved by the parties through the State Administration for Industry and Commerce or administrative litigation.
How to solve the trademark transfer dispute, how to solve the trademark transfer dispute, what are the problems about how to solve the trademark transfer dispute? It will be introduced in detail below.
China's Trademark Law stipulates that the assignment of a registered trademark shall be signed by the assignor and the assignee. Therefore, any transfer of its registered trademark without the permission of the trademark owner will split the relationship between the trademark owner and the registered trademark, which is essentially an infringement of the trademark right. The owner of the original trademark has the right to bring a civil lawsuit to the people's court to confirm that the trademark transfer is invalid.
Judging from the current situation that people's courts accept such cases, trademark transfer disputes are mainly manifested in civil litigation to confirm the invalidity of trademark transfer. The plaintiff is the owner or interested party of the original trademark, and the defendant is often the assignee. The plaintiff's claim is generally to confirm that the trademark transfer is invalid, and the relevant provisions of the Civil Procedure Law are also applicable to the people's courts in handling such cases.
However, civil litigation can not completely solve the trademark transfer dispute. According to the provisions of Article 39 of China's Trademark Law, after signing the transfer agreement, the assignor and the assignee shall apply to the Trademark Office, and after being approved and announced by the Trademark Office, the assignee shall enjoy the exclusive right to use the trademark. Article 25 of the Regulations for the Implementation of the Trademark Law stipulates that if the Trademark Office approves an application for the transfer of a registered trademark, it shall issue a corresponding certificate to the assignee and make an announcement; The Trademark Office shall not approve an application for assignment of a registered trademark that may cause misidentification, confusion or other adverse effects, and shall notify the applicant in writing and explain the reasons. It can be seen that it is the duty of China's Trademark Office to approve trademark transfer applications. No matter what causes the subject of a registered trademark to change, whether there is a trademark transfer agreement or not, it must be approved by the Trademark Office. For those who meet the conditions for transfer, the Trademark Office approves the application for trademark transfer and announces the transfer; For those who do not meet the transfer conditions, the Trademark Office will not approve the transfer application, and there is no need to announce the transfer.
If a party refuses to accept the trademark transfer application approved and announced by the Trademark Office, it has the right to bring an administrative lawsuit. According to the provisions of China's administrative procedure law, the parties have the right and can only bring administrative proceedings against the specific administrative acts of administrative organs. The biggest feature of specific administrative acts is that they are only effective for specific matters and specific subjects, and do not have universal binding force. China's Trademark Law and its implementing regulations clearly stipulate that the Trademark Office has the responsibility of approving trademark transfer applications, which is a specific administrative act. The specific matter is the application for trademark transfer, and the main body is the parties to the trademark transfer, that is, the trademark transferor and transferee, and the examination and approval behavior is only valid for the trademark transferor and transferee. In the process of examination and approval of trademark transfer application, if the Trademark Office fails to fulfill its due review obligation when examining and approving trademark transfer application, it may cause damage to the legitimate rights and interests of the parties involved in trademark transfer, especially the trademark owner. Therefore, if a party refuses to accept a specific administrative act approved and announced by the Trademark Office, it shall have the right to bring an administrative lawsuit according to law.
However, judging from the current trademark practice, China's Trademark Law and its implementing regulations only give the Trademark Office the right to approve trademark transfer applications, but do not stipulate its responsibility for improper approval. Due to the lack of proper supervision of administrative power, administrative organs often have the right but no responsibility, and the power of the Trademark Office to approve trademark transfer applications is almost unrestricted, which provides an opportunity for criminals. It is by taking advantage of legal loopholes that some lawless elements forge the seal and signature of the trademark owner, transfer the registered trademark of others to themselves or a third person designated by them, and apply to the Trademark Office for relevant procedures, thus committing fraud? Legal? Coat. After obtaining the registered trademark of others by illegal means, criminals often transfer or license the trademark to others to earn economic benefits, while the original trademark owner is kept in the dark and suffers huge losses; Or ask the original trademark owner for a high reward in exchange for the trademark, and threaten to sue him for trademark infringement if he refuses.
If the original trademark owner takes it as the defendant to file a lawsuit to confirm that the trademark transfer is invalid, they will run away and never appear in court, and the court will not be able to serve them with litigation materials, which will bring many difficulties to the court in hearing such cases. At the same time, some rights holders think that litigation is too troublesome, which is not only time-consuming and laborious, but also pays legal fees, investigation and evidence collection fees and other litigation costs. They had to swallow the demands of criminals and transfer their trademarks to themselves after paying them a sum of money. Some lawless elements also took a fancy to this weakness of the trademark owner, and the amount demanded was generally equivalent to the amount paid by the trademark owner for litigation, trying to induce the trademark owner to settle it peacefully by paying the transfer fee. For those trademarks with important value or high reputation, they ask for high transfer fees.
The current examination and approval system of trademark transfer is the root cause of these drawbacks, which not only infringes on the legitimate rights and interests of trademark owners and causes them to suffer huge losses, but also breeds and encourages extortion and breach of good faith, disrupting the normal trademark legal order. The key to solve this problem is to establish a scientific trademark transfer system, and at the same time, while respecting the subjective wishes of trademark owners, give the trademark management authority the responsibility of examining and approving the transfer application. Its core lies in clarifying the examination contents of trademark management authorities and establishing a supporting legal responsibility system.
If the trademark administration organ fails to perform its duty of examination and approves the trademark transfer application, it should not only hold the relevant personnel accountable for dereliction of duty, including administrative responsibility and criminal responsibility, but also allow the parties or interested parties to file an administrative lawsuit, so as to facilitate the public's supervision over the trademark administration organ's exercise of state power. In addition, a registered trademark restoration system should be established to return the illegally transferred trademark right to the original trademark owner according to law.
The above is the trademark transfer dispute provided by Bian Xiao. I hope everyone will like it!