The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress announced amendments to the Trademark Law of the People’s Republic of China on April 23, 2019.

The new amendments address three primary issue areas:

  1. the filing of trademark applications in bad faith without an intent to use;
  2. the sanctioning of trademark agencies that assist with the filing

China promulgated an electronic commerce law on August 31, 2018, effective, January 1, 2019.  Of interest to intellectual property rights (IPR) holders, the law makes e-commerce platform operators potentially jointly and severally liable with IP infringers and enables the relevant administrative department (e.g., the China National Intellectual Property Agency (CNIPA)) to fine platform operators up to 2 million RMB (~$291,000) for failure to protect IPR. The law also formalizes a mechanism for IPR disputes on e-commerce platforms.
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