BKIP Limited

COPYRIGHT BKIP 2020
Expiry of Trademark in China, Renewal or Re-registration? Aug 2020
A registered trademark is valid for 10 years in China while at the expiry date, trademark renewal is necessary. If there is no renewal, the trademark will become invalid. Without any doubt, you can apply to re-register the trademark. Yet, there is a great distinction between trademark renewal and registration!
1. Difference in Time
Trademark renewal is to extend the validity period of the registered trademark, so the application procedures are simpler. There is only the formality requirement of examining the trademark qualification but it needs not to go through the substantive examination stage. Therefore, the trademark renewal certificate can be obtained as short as around 2 months.
While for the re-registration of the same trademark of the same class, there is one extra year of protection period. In this way, you have to spend at least 2 years in total to regain the previously expired trademark. Since re-registration costs a long period of time, so trademark renewal is more suitable for you if you urgently need to use it.
2. Difference in Cost
The overall cost of trademark renewal is low. Although the official fee of trademark renewal is higher than that of trademark registration, trademark is, indeed, an intangible asset of a corporate. Also, a good registered trademark will continue to add value. Therefore, the longer validity period of a trademark, the greater commercial value it obtains. Taking into account the commercial value of a corporate trademark, costing RMB 1000 for official renewal fee is actually not expensive.
Cost of re-registration is high. If a third party constitutes pre-emptive registration causing rejection of your trademark during the re-registration, more money has to be spent for the rejection review and opposition reply. In this way, the cost is much higher than trademark renewal.
In addition, the corporate has to spend a great amount of promotion fee in order to reach the same level of trademark reputation as the one before. That being the case, trademark renewal is undoubtedly more cost-effective.
3. Difference in Risk
For trademark renewal, only the examination of trademark qualification is required, so the passing rate is very high.
While trademark re-registration requires additional substantive examination, there are possibility of being rejected during the examination process. Therefore, by comparing the risks of both options, trademark renewal is still better.
In conclusion, no matter considering time, cost or risk, trademark renewal should be the right choice since it has the advantages of requiring less time and cost, and exposing to less risk.
Therefore, everyone must pay attention to the validity period and expiry date of your trademark and renew it one year prior to the expiration. Do not be afraid if you forget to renew before the expiry date, there is a 6-month grace period after the expiration during which you can still renew the registered trademark, but it costs a little bit more. If you do not renew the trademark 6 months after the expiry date, the only option will be re-registration.