Core point: Zang Mengya, a commentator on China Economic Network, believes that the malicious rush to register trademarks has seriously disrupted the order of trademark registration, damaged the public interest, exceeded the bottom line of business ethics, and touched the legal red line. Cracking down on malicious trademark registration and strengthening intellectual property protection are not only necessary means to protect the legitimate rights and interests of obligees, but also necessary requirements for maintaining normal market order and creating a high-quality business environment.

In recent days, the malicious trademark registration caused by hot events such as "Shanhe University" and "Zibo Barbecue" has once again come under the social spotlight. Malicious rush registration of trademarks is no longer a new topic. In fact, malicious rush registration of well-known trademarks, trade names and celebrity names at home and abroad is not uncommon. After successful rush registration, most malicious rush registrants leave trademarks idle for sale, and even the same subject hoards hundreds of thousands of trademarks.

Then, why is the malicious rush to register trademarks repeatedly prohibited? The most important reason is "profitable". The trademark is a valuable resource, and the trademark right is the exclusive right of the civil subject to use specific marks on specific goods or services for the purpose of distinguishing sources. Trademark right has great commercial value in the commodity economy society. In the era of traffic, where there are hot spots, there are illegal organizations sniffing the business opportunities to register trademarks maliciously. Even a word from netizens that is hot on the Internet has become the "prey" of malicious squatters. However, the low cost of violation and the weak awareness of law-abiding make the malicious squatters take risks.

Whatever the purpose, the malicious rush to register trademarks has seriously disrupted the order of trademark registration, damaged the public interests, exceeded the bottom line of business ethics, and even touched the legal red line. This "malicious rush to register" must be stopped. In this regard, the relevant departments may wish to strengthen supervision from two aspects.

On the one hand, it is necessary to strictly control the audit threshold and move forward the "threshold" of supervision, so that malicious squatters have no chance to take advantage of it. It is not only necessary to clarify the characteristics and penalties of abnormal trademark applications and malicious rush registration in legislation, but also to give full play to the review role of trademark agencies and review agencies. By raising the threshold of trademark declaration, it is necessary to increase the recognition and interception of abnormal or non bona fide trademark applications in the links of trademark application submission, registration review, etc, Let the rush registration of trademarks be controlled within a legal and reasonable range.

On the other hand, it is necessary to increase the illegal cost, so as to reduce the profit space of illegal organizations and make it unprofitable for malicious squatters. Since the 2021 Special Action Plan for Combating Malicious Trademark Rush Registration, the State Intellectual Property Office has issued policy documents for three consecutive years, releasing the signal of strict governance. All relevant departments should cooperate on this basis, establish and improve the database of malicious registered suspects, implement information sharing, form a joint force of supervision, effectively implement joint punishment on enterprises and individuals involved, and cut off the illegal profit chain of malicious registered trademarks to the greatest extent.

It should be said that the improvement of relevant laws and regulatory systems has been on the way, and the awareness of business entities and consumers of intellectual property protection is also growing. In the first half of this year alone, the State Intellectual Property Office cracked down on 249000 malicious trademark registrations. In the above cases, the applicants, intimidated by laws and policies, voluntarily terminated their violations, withdrew their applications and cancelled their trademarks, totaling 204000, accounting for 81.9%.

Cracking down on malicious trademark registration and strengthening intellectual property protection are not only necessary means to protect the legitimate rights and interests of obligees, but also necessary requirements for maintaining normal market order and creating a high-quality business environment. The "malicious rush to register" has once again become the focus of public attention at present, which also reminds the regulatory authorities at all levels. Next, we should continue to work on the whole chain of regulation, further standardize the protection of intellectual property rights, so as to ensure the fairness of market competition and effectively boost market confidence. (Zang Mengya, commentator of China Economic Network)