Two refusals that look the same from outside

A sign is refused in China, and the notice names a ground. Two files can look identical from the outside — the same word, the same composite logo — and still be refused for reasons that have nothing to do with each other. CNIPA's Trademark Examination and Review Guidelines place signs that cannot be used as marks in a single chapter, but inside that chapter the signs are routed to different grounds, and the route decides which facts matter. The office's own commentary on the chapter is unusually explicit about where the lines fall.

The comparison is of the sign as a whole

The first fork concerns state names. The question asked is whether the sign as a whole is identical or similar to the name of the state — not whether one component of it is. A word mark built around a national name plus a distinctive element is assessed in its entirety, which cuts both ways: added matter can carry a sign outside the comparison, and it does not by itself rescue one that still reads as the state name.

The second step is the one that catches drafts. Where a sign contains the state name but is not, overall, identical or similar, the office can still treat it as having other adverse effects if registering it as a mark could impair national dignity. So a composite that has done just enough to break the literal comparison, and not enough to remove the official reference, is examined under the public-order ground rather than released. The office borrowed this two-step structure from the Supreme People's Court's interpretation on trademark authorisation and confirmation cases issued in 2017, and applies the same interpretation to deceptiveness and to adverse effects more broadly. The difference between the two steps is not the sign; it is the reasoning. One asks what the sign says, the other asks what registering it would do.

Deceptiveness is measured by the general public

Deceptiveness is judged by how the ordinary public reads the sign, not by what the applicant intended. Three consequences follow.

First, the goods and services named in the application decide whether a description misleads at all. A term that overstates a quality is deceptive for goods that lack it and unremarkable for goods that have it — which is why the same word can be refused in one class and accepted in another.

Second, the office treats source misrecognition as reaching service marks, where the misled expectation concerns the provider of the service rather than a place of manufacture. For a service mark, a name that reads as an official body or an accredited institution does the damage on its own; there is no factory to point to.

Third, the chapter works by enumeration. It lists signs identical or similar to the name or portrait of a public figure; signs identical or similar to the name or logo of an educational institution, sports body, environmental organisation or charitable organisation that enjoys a degree of reputation, used without that body's permission; and signs identical or similar to the name or logo of an important sporting event, an important exhibition or a major archaeological discovery, used without authorisation from the organiser or the competent authority. Standard abbreviations of those names count, which is the detail most foreign filers miss: an acronym is not a way around the rule.

Institution names are not a private right in disguise

The institutional and event categories read like a favour to well-known bodies. The office's answer says otherwise: the purpose given is consumer protection and fair competition, and the test carries conditions that a private right would not need.

Three conditions operate together. The name must carry a degree of reputation, or matter to the economy and society of a region. The use must be without permission from the body, or authorisation from the organiser or competent authority. And registration must be capable of leading the public to misidentify the source of the goods or services. Similarity alone does not put a sign in this category: a school nobody has heard of is not protected merely because it has a name. The reputation element is what converts a name into a fact the examining division can work with, and it is usually proved with the same material as any other public-recognition question — enrolment or membership figures, press coverage, event programmes, sponsorship records.

When the objection is public order rather than confusion

The other branch does not depend on consumers being misled at all. It collects signs whose effect falls on public interest, public order or public morals, and it describes that effect on the public rather than on any individual trader. Two entries in the chapter are worth knowing before a name is chosen.

The first is geography with a policy dimension: names, including standard abbreviations, of national-level new areas and national key development regions.

The second is emergency vocabulary — signs identical or similar to terms specific to a major public health event, a major natural disaster, a major accident or a social safety incident. The definition of a sudden public emergency is taken from the emergency response statute, which covers those four event types. The reason given for the rule is direct: during major outbreaks and disasters, some applicants filed marks on the vocabulary of the event to draw attention, and those filings disturbed the register. The objection here is not that buyers would be confused about who made a product; it is that the filing itself is out of place.

Martyrs' names sit in the same branch under a different structure. A sign identical to, or containing, a martyr's name is not refused across the board. The office weighs the composition of the sign, the goods and services designated, and the applicant's locality and degree of connection with the martyr, and the chapter sets out exceptions to the standard. The protection of martyrs' names and portraits from commercial use comes from the Hero Martyrs Protection Law passed in 2018; the chapter's work is to turn that into examination factors rather than a blanket bar. For a foreign applicant, the connection factor is the one that matters — a name that is unremarkable in one market can be a martyr's name in a Chinese province, and the file will be read with that local knowledge in view.

Frequently asked questions

Can a sign be caught by both grounds at once?

Yes, though the chapter is arranged so that the two do not overlap by accident. Names that behave like private interests — public figures, known institutions, important events and exhibitions — are handled under the deceptiveness ground. Conduct that harms public morals, public interest or public order is handled under the adverse-effects ground. A sign containing the state name can move from the first test to the second, as described above. What the notice cites decides which documents answer it: permission letters and reputation evidence for the first, and a different argument altogether for the second.

Does good faith help if the sign is called deceptive?

Not much, because the measure is the reading the general public gives the sign rather than the applicant's intention. What does help is the specification. Deceptiveness is assessed against the goods and services actually named, so a term that is accurate for the listed items is not answering the same objection as the same term on a different list. Rewriting the specification is sometimes the cheaper route, and it is a change to the application rather than to the mark.

May I register a university's name with its permission?

Permission removes one of the three conditions, not all of them. The name must still carry a degree of reputation or regional importance, and registration must still be capable of misidentifying the source. In practice a written authorisation from the institution, on its letterhead and naming the mark and the goods, is the document the file needs; a distributor agreement or a sponsorship contract is not the same thing. Where the body is a public institution, the competent authority may be the party that authorises rather than the body itself.

Are martyrs' names refused automatically?

No. The chapter sets out factors rather than a rule of automatic refusal: how the sign is composed, what goods and services are designated, and how closely the applicant is connected with the martyr's home area. It also provides for exceptions. The practical lesson is that a common Chinese personal name is worth a search before it goes on a label, because the same two characters can be an ordinary surname-plus-given-name and a recorded martyr's name in the province where the goods will be sold.

Official sources

Related reading

Checking a mark that touches a state name, an institution or an event? Send us the sign and the specification, and we will come back with a search result and a fee quote.