The State Administration for Industry and Commerce issued recently the "Typical Trademark Review and Adjudication Cases in 2014". The MAYER • BOCHMB trademark objection review case represented by CCPIT Patent and Trademark Law Office was included in the "Typical Cases".

In this case, the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board (TRAB) held that whereas the trademark applicant, i.e. the respondent in the case, had business contact with the petitioner and knew about the latter's trademark MAYER • BOCHMB before the registration of the opposed trademark, which is of exactly the same words and the same style as the petitioner's trademark. The behavior of the respondent was not a coincidence but violated the principle of good faith. Therefore, according to Article 15(2) of the Trademark Law, the registration of the opposed trademark shall not be approved. The respondent's claim of being the first one to use the trademark MAYER • BOCHMB was not supported by the TRAB for the lack of well-founded evidence. (SUV)

Article 15(2) of the new Trademark Law has stipulated those behaviors that violate the principle of good faith, such as scrambling for registration of a trademark by taking advantage of special relationships with the real trademark owner, including contract relationship, business relationship, offering powerful legal weapons to safeguard the owner's prior right of use.