It has been reported that from the past two months the Trade Mark Office of china has received hundreds of trademark applications containing terms relating to the fight against the virus including, inter alia, ‘huoshenshan’, ‘leishenshan’ and ‘(Dr) Li Wenliang’.

On 27 February, the trademark Office rejected the trademark registration appeal and issued a Notice stating that the office would be ‘severely cracking down on malicious trademark applications related to the epidemic’. The note added that the registration of ‘huoshenshan’ and ‘leishenshan’ as trademarks will be rejected unless being filed by the respective hospitals.

On 4 March, the Trade Mark Office published a detailed list of the 63 rejected pandemic-related trademark applications, including the application numbers and classes, together with the corresponding information of the applicants and agencies.

On 5 March, the Trade Mark Office announced the rejection decisions against 37 ‘Li Wenliang’-related trademark applications by virtue of Article 10.1.8.

By 18 March, the Trade Mark Office had rejected 328 trademark applications related to the fight against Coronavirus. The applicant who sought to register ‘Li Wenliang’ and ‘Wenliang’ on the day of his passing dropped the applications and made a public apology to the late Dr. Li Wenliang, his family, and the public alike.