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INDIVIDUAL POA REQUIRED FOR EACH TRADEMARK CASE
Article 9 Paragraph 1 of the Trademark Law provides that trademark agent may be appointed to file an application for registration of a trade-mark and to handle all matters pertaining to a trademark. Article 10 Paragraph 1 provides that trademark agent may perform all necessary acts in respect of matters pertaining to a trademark, except as restricted by the contract of appoint-ment. With regard to the powers of a patent agent, Article 12 of the Patent Law merely pro-vides that an applicant may appoint a patent agent to file patent applications and handle pat-ent-related matters on his behalf; the law does not specify the extent of a patent agent's powers. In past individual cases the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has generally taken the view that a trademark agent or patent agent need only pre-sent a single power of attorney detailing the matters he is empowered to deal with, to be permitted to handle affairs related to multiple trademarks or patents.
However, in a 2002 case, the Supreme Admin-istrative Court held, based on the principle of trademark cases being examined individually, that where an agent is appointed to handle trademark matters, a power of attorney must be presented to the trademarks authority in respect of each individual trademark case before the agent can be permitted to perform necessary acts.
This ruling has overturned the long-standing practice of the IPO in trademark matters. However, it is unclear at present whether patent agents will also have to present a separate power of attorney for each individual patent case.