China's legislature adopts amendment to Trademark Law

The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, concluded its bimonthly session on Friday, adopting an amendment to the Trademark Law that aims to better protect exclusive trademark rights.

The amendment has added clauses to prevent malicious registration of trademarks and raised the compensation ceiling for trademark infringement to 3 million yuan (about 500,000 U.S. dollars), six times the previous limit.

The amendment also offers protection for well-known trademarks and changed clauses to improve the efficiency of the trademark registration process.

China's Trademark Law was adopted in 1982 and amendments were made in 1993 and 2001.

As of June 2012, China held the world's largest number of registered trademarks and valid trademark registrations, at 7.17 million and 6.09 million, respectively, according to the latest official statistics.