In September 2013, the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board (TRAB) recognized that the mark of a world-wide famous social network website enjoys relatively high reputation in China and rejected five opposed marks filed by various Chinese entities. Beijing East IP Ltd. represented this world-wide famous social network website.

In the five opposition appeals, the TRAB holdings are summarized as follows: the English mark of this world-wide famous social network website enjoys high reputation and its mark is fanciful and highly distinctive. The opposed parties knew or should have known the reputation of this highly reputable mark. Therefore, the registration of the opposed marks without authorization is likely to cause confusion and misunderstanding among the relevant public and cause detrimental influence, which violated Article 10 (8) of the Chinese Trademark Law. The five favorable TRAB decisions have actually granted cross-class protection to this worldwide famous social network website by citing Article 10 (8) of the Chinese Trademark Law as the catch-all provision.

Moreover, in one case for the opposed mark, the TRAB also held that the mass applications of trademarks of the opposed party as a trademark agency domiciled in Guangzhou are not related to its scope of business can reasonably be seen as to preemptively registered others’ marks in bad faith and violated others’ rights and interests, which violated the provision of “the registration of a trademark was acquired by fraud or any other unfair means” prescribed by Article 41 of the Chinese Trademark Law. This TRAB decision reflects the new provisions of cracking down the bad faith filing of the trademark agencies prescribed by the new Chinese Trademark Law adopted on September 30, 2013 which shall come into force as of May 1, 2014.