China announces big reductions in official trade mark fees

In a move that will be welcomed by many brand owners, the Chinese Trade Mark Office has slashed many of its official fees as of 1 ^st April 2017.

The official fees for the majority of procedures before the Registry have been halved, including the fees for a trade mark application, renewal, opposition, and fees for most types of recordals. Even before these changes, China’s official fees were not particularly high by global standards. However, the halving of the fees for recording changes to a portfolio, including assignments, changes of name/address and changes of agent will undoubtedly be welcome to owners of large portfolios, where these fees can mount up when they are incurred on every mark in a portfolio.

Some concerns have been raised suggesting that by reducing these official fees the Chinese trade mark system is now even more open to abuse by ‘trade mark squatters’ applying to register the brands of successful companies. However, the negative impact of any increase in this sort of filings is surely offset by the benefits to brand owners of lower fees across the board.

A full list of the official fees affected by this change (in Chinese) can be found here.

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