2010 IP Survey Releases Ranking of the World's Major Trademark Registries
The UK-based magazine Managing Intellectual Property (MIP) recently released the results of its World IP Survey for year 2010. Among the results is a ranking of the world's major trademark registration offices according to the evaluation by 400 trademark practitioners from 25 countries.
The survey, conducted in the form of questionnaires and interviews, reflects the performance of a trademark registration office according to five aspects, namely, efficiency of examination process, speed of examination, consistency of examination approaches, registration fee, and overall service quality. The scoring comprises a six- level scale of 10, 6, 4, 2, 1, and 0. Registration offices of respective countries or regions are ranked by their average scores.
Ranking first in the survey is the Benelux Office for Intellectual Property (BOIP) with a score of 32, while Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM), European Union’s trademark and designs registry, occupies the 4th place. Registration offices of Japan, Korea, the US, Hong Kong, and Taiwan come out 6th, 9th, 11th, 14th, and 15th respectively. China's Trademark Office is ranked the 26th in the survey.
Results of the survey show that most respondents place more emphasis on consistency of examination approaches and efficiency of examination process in comparison with registration fee. As of efficiency of examination process, effectiveness and reliability of an online application system is crucial in determining the scores: an online application system per se does not necessarily help lift the scoring for examination efficiency if it is not a reliable one.
While the survey results serve well as a reference, it should be noted that they have limitation on account of insufficient sampling pool.
