Your China Trademarks: Done Right or on the Cheap?

Home | China Law Blog | Your China Trademarks: Done Right or on the Cheap? A China Trademark is a Terrible Thing to Waste I often get emails from people asking what my law firm charges for registering trademarks in China and I always respond by quoting our rate for a trademark analysis and stating that we will not "just" register their trademark in the category they tell us. If they want that, they should retain someone else. I did that the other day and the person emailed me back to say that our rates were higher than those of a Chinese firm they were putting in competition with us. My response was as follows: If all we did was just file the trademark you tell us to file, we would charge the same. That's not at all what we do and much of the time we save our clients considerable money in the process. What we do is consult with our clients regarding their product, their business and their intellectual property (IP). After we do that, we then we formulate a trademark protection plan that will maximize protection while minimizing costs. In the last three months alone we have been contacted on the following matters by companies who had used trademark filers who did nothing more than just file the trademark their client told them to file: 1. American company used a quick filer who filed one China trademark for them. Turns out the American company should have filed at least two China trademarks because a Chinese company filed the same trademark for the same product and now there is pretty much nothing the American company can do to stop the Chinese company from using "their" trademark to compete with them. We get about five of these calls a year. You have a clock radio. Do you register the clock or the radio or both? It depends mostly on what you are going to be doing with the clock radio and where you are going to be doing it. Here's a less obvious example: you trademark your lawnmower but not the engine. Someone else trademarks the engine and puts their name in big letters on the engine and starts selling lawnmowers with it. You should have trademarked the engine and the lawnmower. I can go on and on. 2. Should your trademark be in both English and Mandarin? That really depends again on what you will be doing and where you will be doing it. But if you do not register the Mandarin name, you do not get it. And what about Cantonese? And what will you choose for your Chinese name anyway? 3. Should you register your logo separately or with your name or not at all. Again, that really depends. Many times you can do the name and logo together and thereby save money. Other times you cannot. 4. Are you certain the class you have chosen makes sense in China? Do you know what categories you want within that class? 5. What if your trademark is not accepted by the Trademark office? What exactly does your fee with the Chinese firm cover? I assume they will come back to you and just say "too bad." We work with the trademark office to get them to say yes and if they still do not, then we work with you on what to do and if that involves trying again with a new trademark, we do that too. Quality Over Quantity Securing a China trademark is more than just staking a claim; it's about comprehensive protection, and when it comes to registering a trademark in China, as is true of just about everything else, you get what you pay for. Check Out Our China Law Services Share Twitter Facebook LinkedIn E-mail Comment Fred Rocafort Fred leads Harris Sliwoski’s intellectual property practice and is the coordinator of the firm’s international team. Much of Fred’s practice consists of helping cannabis businesses protect their brands. He also works with entrepreneurs and companies entering the Web3 space, a new frontier for IP law. Prior to joining Harris Sliwoski, Fred worked overseas for more than a decade, in both government and private sector roles. Fred is a regular contributor to the award-winning China Law Blog and Canna Law Blog. Fred began his career overseas as a U.S. consular officer in Guangzhou, China, where he advocated for fairer treatment of American companies and citizens in China and for stronger intellectual property rights enforcement. After entering the private sector, Fred worked at a Shanghai law firm as a foreign legal advisor and later joined one of the oldest American law firms in China, helping foreign companies navigate the Chinese legal environment. He also led the legal team at a Hong Kong-based brand protection consultancy, spending most of his time out in the field, protecting clients against counterfeiters and fraudsters in Greater China, Southeast Asia and Latin America. In addition to his IP work, as a native Spanish speaker, Fred works closely with different Harris Sliwoski teams on Latin America and Spain matters. Fred also provides advice to cannabis industry participants and other businesses on import and export transactions. Fred is an ardent supporter of FC Barcelona—and would be even in the absence of Catalan forebears who immigrated to Puerto Rico in the mid-1800s. Harris Sliwoski Attorney Read more posts [email protected] Read More Intellectual Property (IP) Learn more about our International Trade Law Practice Related Posts September 15, 2026 Your AI-Drafted China Contract Says It Needs a Lawyer. Listen to It. September 11, 2026 Forensic Accountants in China Business Litigation: How True Numbers Can Tell the Wrong Story September 4, 2026 China NNN Agreement or Trademark Registration? You Usually Need Both September 1, 2026 AI Didn't Replace Lawyers. It Gave Us the 48-Page Contract. 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