International Activities

Trademark Committee: 2nd TM5 User Conference in Seoul, South Korea

December 6, 2013: The Trademark Five Party User Conference(TM5) was held in Seoul, South Korea with Japan, USA, Europe, China and South Korea represented along with JIPA’s three members of the Trademark Committee headed by Managing Director Takatoshi Kondo (Daikin Kogyo).

Participants include representatives of government agencies, namely JPO, USPTO, OHIM, KIPO and SAIC, along with three user groups from Japan, JPAA, JTA and JIPA, and from other countries as well including INTA and KPAA.

On the day prior to the Conference, the “Users Informal Gathering” was held for the purpose of getting participants from user groups and government agencies to mingle and get to know each other and, on the day of the Conference, reports were given with time for Q&A on the current status of each government agency of the TM5 in the morning, and then on each project undertaken by the TM5 in the afternoon.

JIPA put forth a proposal regarding “Bad Faith Project” for the “introduction of a trademark system whereby applicants are required to prove a lack of malicious intent.” Also, regarding the “ID LIST Project,” JIPA expressed a desire to “clarify ID LIST addition procedures when a new service or product comes out” and “introduce an application system that uses an ID LIST framework when filing Madrid Protocol applications.”

Note that, for the next fiscal year, the Conference will be held in Japan in the fall and, with respect to large projects advantageous to companies that work to harmonize the trademark system, the Trademark Committee wants to continue cooperative efforts going forward.

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