What are collective marks, certification marks and geographical indications?

A collective trademark is a collective right applied for registration and ownership in the name of a collective composed of members, and is jointly used by all members. This is reflected in the application for registration of a collective trademark, which requires that only collective organizations with legal personality can apply. What are collective marks, certification marks and geographical indications? The editor of Legal Savior Network has compiled the following content to answer your questions. I hope it will be helpful to you.

1. What are collective marks, certification marks and geographical indications

1. Collective trademark refers to a group trademark A sign registered in the name of an organization, association or other organization, and used by members of the organization in commercial activities to indicate the user's membership in the organization.

2. Certification trademark refers to a trademark made by a certain Products or services controlled by an organization with the ability to supervise and used by units or individuals other than the organization to prove the origin, raw materials, manufacturing methods, quality or other specific qualities of the goods or services logo.

3. Geographical indications It means that the goods or services originate from a certain country, region or region, and the quality, reputation or other characteristics of the goods are determined by the natural factors or human factors of the place of origin. The special quality of the goods is related to the water, soil and water of the place of origin. Climate and other geographical environments are closely related. For example: **Yellow wine, **Green onions, etc. The most basic and common geographical indication is the place name, which can be the name of a country, a geographical name or an administrative division. Geographical indications can also be composed of visual signs such as text, graphics, letters, and numbers that have distinctive features and are easy to identify.

2. What qualifications do applicants for geographical indications need to have

The registrant of a geographical indication shall have the authority to supervise the specific quality of the goods marked with the geographical indication. Capability organizations can be organizations such as societies, associations, and industry groups, rather than producers or operators of a certain commodity.

3. What are the precautions when applying for registration of geographical indications

(1) Applications for registration of geographical indications as collective trademarks or certification marks are the same as commodity trademarks, and both adopt international classifications. The "International Classification of Goods and Services for Trademark Registration" divides goods into 34 categories (i.e., categories 1-34) and services into 11 categories (i.e., categories 35-45), and applications are made by category.

(2) Although the application for geographical indication registration has designated the trademark as a collective trademark or If a certification trademark is not accompanied by documents such as the subject qualification certification document or the trademark use management rules, it will be returned by the Trademark Office, and the application date will not be retained.

(3) When applying, you must specify the trademark type as a collective trademark or certification trademark, otherwise even though the subject qualification certification document and trademark use management are attached. Rules, but if the trademark is not designated as a collective trademark or certification mark, the Trademark Office will treat it as an ordinary trademark.

(4) If the same applicant has registered a trademark for the same or similar goods and submits an application for registration of a geographical indication, in order to avoid confusion among consumers, The Trademark Office will not approve the registration unless the applicant also submits an application to cancel the product trademark to the Trademark Office.

(5) When applying for registration of a certification mark, it should be filled in according to the specific goods certified by the certification mark. You cannot arbitrarily expand the scope of goods or fill in goods unrelated to the certification content. Otherwise, the Trademark Office will Partially rejected.

Once a collective mark is registered, its All members of a collective organization may use the collective trademark, but must complete necessary procedures in accordance with the management rules for the use of the collective trademark. The registrant shall issue a "Collective Trademark Use Certificate" to the user in accordance with Article 19 of the "Measures". Collective trademark use certificate The trademark registrant should supervise the use of the trademark by its members in accordance with the law and the quality of the goods. If the goods used by its members do not meet the requirements of its use management rules, are shoddy, pass off as inferior, and deceive consumers, it is a collective trademark. The registrant shall bear legal responsibility. After joint consultation among the members of the organization, the registrant may charge a certain management fee, but it shall not be for profit and shall be used exclusively for the management of collective trademarks.

The above content is the relevant answer. If you have other legal questions, you can consult the relevant lawyers on the Legal Savior Network .