As most Hong Kong trade mark practitioners are aware, the Hong Kong Trade Marks Registry publishes their decisions of trade mark main hearings on their website. This article will provide some brief statistics of such decisions issued in 2025.
In 2025, the Hong Kong Trade Marks Registry issued/published a total of 44 trade mark hearing decisions: 17 on invalidation actions, 16 on oppositions, 7 on non-use revocation actions and 4 on registrability.
In 16 of the 17 invalidation actions, the applicants succeeded in getting the trade mark registrations invalidated. Of these 16 successful invalidation actions, the Hearing Office decided the cases on the basis that the applications for registration of the relevant trade marks were made in bad faith. The only other successful invalidation action was decided on the ground of prior rights.
Of the 16 issued decisions on oppositions, 8 cases were decided in favour of the opponent, 6 cases were decided in favour of the applicant, and in 2 cases the opponent secured a partial success.
Of the 7 non-use revocation actions, 5 trade mark registrations were revoked, as requested by the applicants, 1 trade mark registration was partially revoked, again as requested by the applicant, and 1 trade mark registration was partially revoked, although the applicant originally sought full revocation of the trade mark registration.
Finally, in the 4 registrability hearings, all the trade mark applications have been refused registration.
Stay tuned for detailed insights into these decisions in the upcoming publications. If you would like to understand more about trademark laws in Hong Kong, let’s get in touch.