Nowadays, environmental protection and sustainable development have become important issues in many countries. Under the United Nations’ 2050 net-zero emissions target, the topics of green economy, green energy, and commodities have received increasing attention. Among intellectual property rights, trademarks can act to identify the source of goods or services. For green trademarks possessing the concept of environmental protection, they refer to the designated items of goods/services under the Nice International Classification, in which at least one item is used for green goods/services, as defined by the European Union for trademark registration. A green trademark can establish a company’s brand image and attract consumers to purchase or use the products or services. It also provides an advantage, especially for large companies, to face strong global competition under carbon-emission related regulations such as paying carbon taxes and others.
In order to provide the industry with a reference for trademark layout, the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) combined the EU’s “Green Terms” and Taiwan’s “Green Expressions” as filtering criteria to search the filing cases related to green goods/services from the Taiwan Trademark Database, and published the “Analysis of Taiwan Green Trademark Industry Layout” at the end of August this year. According to the statistical analysis by TIPO, among the trademark cases applied for registration in Taiwan from 2014 to 2023, green trademarks (125,388 cases) and non-green trademarks (740,099 cases) accounted for 14.49% and 85.51%, respectively. The average proportion of green trademark filings is about 13% in the early term (2014~2016), about 15.31% in the mid-term (2017~2020), and about 14.64 % in the latter term (2021~2023). The number of filings in the latter term was slightly lower than that in the mid-term due to the COVID-19 epidemic. However, in the overall long term, Taiwan green trademark filings have maintained a certain growth over the past ten years.
For Taiwan green trademark applications, the applicants come from Taiwan, Mainland China, Japan, United States, and other countries (regions). The top three applicants are Uni-President Enterprises, Apple, and Alibaba. Among the nine major areas of green trademark (similar to the nine major groups categorized by EU), Taiwan green trademark cases focus on energy conservation (mainly energy saving and power storage), pollution control (mainly general pollution, water purification, and air purification), and energy production (mainly solar energy), accounted for nearly 80% of green trademark applications. The following tables are relevant statistics from TIPO.
Top Ten Origins of Taiwan Green Trademark Applicants from 2014 to 2023
| Rank | Origin of Applicant(Countries/Regions) | Number of Trademark Applications | Number of Green Trademark Applications | Percentage of Green Trademark Applications |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Taiwan | 648542 | 80868 | 12.47% |
| 2 | China | 47332 | 10334 | 21.83% |
| 3 | Japan | 38611 | 8027 | 20.79% |
| 4 | United States | 37916 | 7567 | 19.96% |
| 5 | Hong Kond | 14657 | 2685 | 18.32% |
| 6 | South Korea | 14867 | 2456 | 16.52% |
| 7 | Germany | 8275 | 2378 | 28.74% |
| 8 | Cayman Islands | 3307 | 1215 | 36.74% |
| 9 | United Kingdom | 5876 | 1127 | 19.18% |
| 10 | Singapore | 5481 | 1086 | 19.81% |
(Source: TIPO)
Taiwan Green Trademark Applications from 2014 to 2023
| Rank | 9 Major Green Groups (number of cases / percentage) | Top Three Applicants (number of cases) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Energy Conservation (53,993 / 31.48%) | Apple (442) Uni-President (294) Huawei (247) |
| 2 | Pollution Control (45,932 / 27.20%) | Uni-President (527) Hisamitsu Pharma (239) Kobayashi Pharma (214) |
| 3 | Energy Production (34,761 / 20.58%) | Apple (453) Uni-President (341) Nintendo (237) |
| 4 | Climate Change (7,272 / 4.31%) | Alibaba Group (193) Uni-President (150) Amason Tech (89) |
| 5 | Waste Management (6,969 / 4.13%) | Uni-President (108) Apple (67) Coupang (43) |
| 6 | Agriculture (5,367 / 3.18%) | Agriall Fertilizer (215) Dayi Agritech (128) Sinon (49) |
| 7 | Transportation (5,501 / 3.26%) | Kwang Yang Motor (226) BMW (82) Daimler (54) |
| 8 | Environmental Awareness (4,790 / 2.84%) | Alibaba Group (193) Uni-President (63) Nintendo (37) |
| 9 | Reuse/Recycling (4,307 / 2.55%) | Uni-President (134) Taiwan Cement (31) Sanrio (28) |
(Source: TIPO)
Although a green trademark can be regarded as a corporate brand to demonstrate environmental friendliness and promote carbon reduction, the substantive examination of a trademark application does not include the performance of products, manufacturing processes, packaging, or even the disposal after use, etc. Due to the development of green business opportunities, there are now some products on the market that use green words for advertisement, which exaggerate the efficacy of their products or services. Therefore, in addition to filing trademark registration for green products, applicants can apply for relevant certifications or should obtain marketing authorizations, to avoid the so-called “greenwashing” business practices that may affect business goodwill or violate laws and regulations.
