Five Practical Steps Foreign Brands Should Take to Prepare for China's New Trademark Law

Home | China Law Blog | Five Practical Steps Foreign Brands Should Take to Prepare for China's New Trademark Law Table of Contents Toggle China adopted a revised Trademark Law on June 26, 2026. The new law will take effect on January 1, 2027. Much of the commentary surrounding the revised law has focused on the statutory changes themselves. Foreign companies, however, should focus on what they need to do differently before the law takes effect. The fundamentals remain the same: file early, register strategically in the classes and subclasses that matter, and monitor your trademarks. Companies should register broadly where appropriate, but each filing should be tied to a legitimate business, expansion, subclass, anti-counterfeiting, or defensive objective. At the same time, the revised law introduces several changes that will make ongoing trademark portfolio management more important than ever. For an explanation of why early filing remains so critical, see China Trademarks: Do You Feel Lucky? Do You? The filing deadline becomes especially important when a company is preparing to disclose its brand and product information to Chinese manufacturers. The trademark and NNN deadlines are different, and companies should address both before production. Here are the five developments to which foreign brand owners should pay the closest attention. 1. Beginning January 1, 2027, you will have only two months—not three—to oppose conflicting applications From a practical perspective, this is probably the most significant change. Many foreign brand owners do little or nothing to monitor new trademark filings in China. Instead, they discover conflicting applications only by chance—through a distributor, customer, business partner, or local counsel—or, worse, after the mark has already proceeded to registration. Reducing the opposition period from three months to two months makes this reactive approach considerably riskier. Companies with valuable brands in China should consider implementing a systematic trademark watch program so that newly published applications can be identified while opposition remains available. Waiting to stumble across a problematic application may no longer leave enough time to act. The same principle applies well beyond China. Trademark rights are territorial, and each jurisdiction has its own opposition procedures and deadlines. In the United States, for example, the opposition period is generally just thirty days. Companies with international trademark portfolios should therefore consider implementing coordinated trademark watch programs across the jurisdictions that matter most to their business, rather than relying on chance to uncover potentially conflicting filings. For companies that already use trademark watch services, the shorter opposition period also means internal review and decision-making should be streamlined so that instructions can be provided to Chinese counsel well before the new deadline expires. 2. Keep your registration information current The revised law increases the consequences of failing to update a registration following changes to the registrant’s name, address, or other recorded information. Under the revised law, unauthorized changes to a registered mark or to recorded registration information may result in an order to correct the registration and a fine of up to RMB 50,000. In serious cases, the registration may be cancelled. In practice, this is also a matter of sound trademark portfolio management. Companies relocate, reorganize, merge, and change names all the time. Whenever those changes occur, corresponding updates should be recorded not only with CNIPA, but also with trademark offices in other jurisdictions where the company owns registrations or has pending applications. Keeping trademark records current has always been a fundamental aspect of maintaining a global trademark portfolio, and the revised law underscores the importance of ensuring that those records accurately reflect reality. 3. Think carefully before changing your logo The revised law reinforces another long-standing best practice: companies should review the trademark consequences before adopting a new or modified logo. There are two separate issues to consider. First, a registration protects the mark as registered. If a company materially changes its logo, the revised version may require a new trademark application. Continuing to rely exclusively on a registration for an older logo may leave the company without adequate protection for the mark it is actually using. Second, use of a materially different logo may not be sufficient to prove use of the registered mark if the registration is later challenged in a non-use cancellation proceeding. Even where a company has continuously used its branding, a significant discrepancy between the registered logo and the logo used in the marketplace can create an evidentiary problem. For these reasons, word marks remain the cornerstone of most international trademark strategies. They are generally more durable than design marks and less susceptible to becoming outdated as branding evolves. Before adopting or rolling out a redesigned logo in China—or, ideally, anywhere in the world—companies should consult trademark counsel to determine whether the revised logo remains within the scope of the existing registration or whether an additional application should be filed. 4. Maintain evidence of trademark use Beginning in 2027, CNIPA will have authority to initiate certain non-use cancellation proceedings on its own initiative rather than waiting for a third party to act. Exactly how frequently this authority will be exercised remains to be seen, and much will depend on how CNIPA implements the new provisions in practice. Nevertheless, the practical lesson is straightforward: maintaining evidence of use is becoming increasingly important. Advertising materials, invoices, product packaging, sales records, screenshots, shipping documents, and other contemporaneous evidence should be retained on an ongoing basis rather than reconstructed years later after a cancellation action has begun. It is surprisingly common for companies to have used their trademarks for years but remain unable to prove that use because they failed to preserve the necessary records. China is not abandoning its first-to-file system. The revised law does, however, give the authorities more tools to scrutinize registrations that have no credible connection to actual or reasonably anticipated business activity. Maintaining organized evidence of legitimate trademark use will therefore become an increasingly important part of portfolio management. 5. Make sure your portfolio reflects your business Many companies accumulate trademark registrations over time that no longer correspond to their commercial activities. At the same time, filing beyond a company’s immediate product line can serve legitimate purposes, including protecting reasonably anticipated expansion, addressing subclass issues, and preventing counterfeiters or competitors from exploiting gaps in coverage. The revised law does not make defensive trademark registration categorically improper. It does, however, provide for the rejection of applications that are not intended for use and that clearly exceed the applicant’s normal production or business needs. Companies should therefore be prepared to articulate a credible commercial, defensive, or expansion rationale for new filings. Applications that bear no reasonable relationship to the company’s existing or anticipated business may face greater scrutiny. Existing registrations should also be reviewed periodically. Registrations that have not been used for three consecutive years may be vulnerable to cancellation, whether at the request of a third party or, under the revised law, through proceedings initiated by CNIPA. A well-designed portfolio should therefore strike a balance. It should be broad enough to protect the company’s actual business, reasonably anticipated expansion, and legitimate defensive interests, but sufficiently focused that its scope can be explained and supported. A Broader Push Against Trademark Abuse The amendments also expand the general good-faith principle governing trademark registration and use. In addition to requiring trademark rights to be exercised in good faith, the law now expressly prohibits the abuse of trademark rights in a manner that harms national interests, the public interest, or the legitimate rights and interests of others. Whether these provisions become significant enforcement tools remains to be seen. Much will depend on how broadly CNIPA and the courts interpret and apply them in practice. At a minimum, however, they reflect a continued legislative effort to discourage opportunistic trademark conduct throughout the life of a trademark, not merely at the filing stage. The amendments also extend certain penalties applicable to China-based trademark agencies to misconduct occurring in connection with overseas trademark matters. We look forward to vigorous enforcement of these new provisions against the trademark filing mills that have clogged trademark registers around the world—including the USPTO—with bad-faith applications. A Good Time for a Portfolio Audit The amendments do not fundamentally change the importance of trademark registration in China. Filing early remains the single most important step foreign companies can take to protect their brands. What the amendments do change is the importance of maintaining those registrations after they issue. This is therefore an excellent opportunity to conduct a portfolio review. Brand owners should confirm that: registrant names, addresses, and other recorded information are current; registered logos still correspond to the marks being used; new filings have a credible commercial, defensive, or expansion rationale; evidence of trademark use is being retained on an ongoing basis; trademark-watch and internal decision-making procedures can accommodate the new two-month opposition period; and registrations adequately cover the goods and services that matter to the company’s current and reasonably anticipated business. Many aspects of the revised law will become clearer only after implementing rules are issued and the authorities begin applying the new provisions. Until then, foreign brand owners should prepare for more active scrutiny rather than assume that these new powers will remain unused. Companies that review their portfolios now will be better positioned to respond as CNIPA’s enforcement practices develop. 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 Trademark 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. August 27, 2026 Do I Need a China NNN Agreement or a China Manufacturing Agreement? Usually Both. 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