According to Article 45 of the Chinese Trademark Law, the period for filing a request for invalidation of a registered trademark is five years from the date of registration of the trademark. We would like to know, for the trademark registered after the opposition procedure, how to determine the starting date of the five years (i.e., the date of registration)?
Different trademark registration procedures should be distinguished when determining the starting date of the five-year period for request for invalidation of a trademark. If the trademark registration does not go through the opposition procedure, the date of expiration of the three-month period of the trademark preliminary publication can be taken as the starting date of the five-year period. For trademark registration that has undergone opposition or opposition review proceedings, whether the trademark can be registered remains uncertain, so it is not appropriate to use the expiration date of the three-month period of preliminary publication as the date of registration. Where the opposition is not established after examination, the date of approving the registration of the trademark, namely the date of publication of the opposition decision shall be used as the starting date of the five-year period for the invalidation of the trademark. The above views are also reflected in the SPC's [(2021) SPC Xingshen No. 966] judgment.
