19 April, 2017
On 15 March 2017, the National Development and Reform Commission and Ministry of Finance jointly issued a notice (财税 [2017] No.20, “Notice”) to reduce filing fees for various IP registrations. The reduced fees came into force on 1 April 2017.
The reduced or waived administrative fees will certainly be beneficial for enterprises active in China, particularly for smaller enterprises and start-ups, as well as for companies that intend to register trademarks for a large amount of classes, or companies that want to prevent the hijacking of their marks through defensive filings.
With reduced fees, we suggest companies reconsider the status of their whole Chinese trademark portfolio, and to file additional defensive applications as appropriate.
Moreover, waiving the official fee for computer software copyright registrations will also encourage small software, IT or game companies to apply for copyright registration for their software products before launching them in the PRC.
Please read our full article here.
