AFD Case Study: How To Handle Preemptive Trademark Registration Filed By Intended Distributors

During the prosecution of trademark applications, it's quite often that the real users of the trademarks find that others have already preemptively registered the trademarks. Some of the "others" may be strangers to the real users of the trademarks, while some may be acquaintances of the real users, or in other words, they may be people who once had certain relationships with the real users. In practice, the preemptive registrants we encountered are often people with certain identities, such as distributors or intended distributors. Below we will share our experience on how to "knock out" such a preemptive trademark application by using the relevant provisions of the Trademark Law.