According to the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (hereinafter SAIC), 20 new trademark receiving offices and 6 offices for pledge registration were approved by SAIC. Up till now the number of trademark receiving offices across China has increased to 76.
To promote trademark registration, 4 channels are now available for trademark applications. Applicants may choose to apply online, entrust trademark agencies, and go to local trademark receiving offices or the receiving office of the trademark office under SAIC. Starting from March 10th, 2017, the online services of online application, search, notification and payment are accessible to all applicants.
In the meanwhile, the procedures for registration continued to simplify, for example, the time for issuing official filing notice is reduced from 6 months to less than 3 months.
In order to improve the efficiency, China will establish trademark coordination centers in Shanghai and Chongqing, two more centers after the operation of Guangzhou Trademark Coordination Center on December 1st, 2016.
