The Chinese Trademark Office (CTMO) received nearly 2.9 million
new trademark applications in 2015, ranking No.1 in the world for
14 consecutive years. The application number increased
approximately ten times compared with 2002 when CTMO received
around 0.3 million new applications and ranked the No. 1 for the
first time. There are more than 12 million registered trademarks in
the Chinese Trademark Register as of 2015.
On the one hand, such a huge number makes CTMO the busiest
trademark authority in the world and it is very common for the
examiners to work overtime. On the other hand, the existence of
such big number of registered trademarks makes it more and more
difficult to register new trademarks. The rate of rejection or
partial rejection in 2015 was approximately 38%, which reflected
the difficulty to successfully register new trademarks in China,
due to the increasing chances of citation.
