China’s New Trademark Law: Its Biggest Overhaul in Years

China’s latest revision of its Trademark Law comes at a pivotal moment for brand owners. While China is still a manufacturing powerhouse, the economy is increasingly being shaped by innovation-led growth, reflected in the rising popularity of Chinese domestic brands globally such as Lenovo, the electric car maker BYD, and Labubu creator Pop Mart. Its entry into the top 10 of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Global Innovation Index and strong intellectual property (IP) activity cement its reputation as a jurisdiction increasingly concerned with IP creation.

According to the World Bank, since 1978, the beginning of China’s “reform and opening up” policy, GDP growth has averaged over nine percent a year, lifting almost 800 million people out of extreme poverty and transforming China from a low-income to upper-middle-income jurisdiction.

China is now the world’s second-largest economy by nominal GDP (with an output of about RMB 140.2 trillion in 2025, or roughly US $20 trillion) and the largest by purchasing power parity (PPP).

The country remains one of the world’s largest and most active trademark jurisdictions. In 2025, the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) registered 4.21 million trademarks, with an average examination period of four months and a pass rate exceeding 97 percent. The total stock of valid registered trademarks continued to grow, reaching nearly 49.9 million (excluding Hong Kong SAR, China; Macau SAR, China; and Taiwan, China) by the end of that year. It also received 6,718 Madrid System applications filed by Chinese applicants, reflecting continued outbound brand protection activity.

Originally enacted in 1983, this is the fifth revision to China’s Trademark Law. The revised law, which will come into effect in January 2027, seeks to respond to concerns such as crowded registers, defensive filing strategies, bad-faith applications, and trademark hoarding.

To address these issues, the new law places greater emphasis on use, expands the range of registrable signs to include motion marks, strengthens mechanisms to address bad-faith conduct, and refines protections for well-known marks.

For foreign brand owners, the reforms will require close attention to filing, monitoring, enforcement, and portfolio management strategies. Shorter opposition periods, expanded protection for unregistered well-known marks, new possibilities for motion marks, and an ex officio cancellation mechanism for unused marks all point to a system that is becoming more active, more use-focused, and more closely aligned with the needs of modern commerce. The fifth revision also seeks to enhance protection for Chinese brands as they expand internationally.

Du Ying, School of Law, Central University of Finance and Economics (China)

To explore the practical implications of the new law, the INTA Bulletin spoke with leading IP scholar Du Ying, Professor, School of Law, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing.

The new China Trademark Law has been described as the most comprehensive revision of China’s Trademark Law in many years. What do you see as the overarching objectives of the reform?
The fifth revision of the Trademark Law reflects a shift in legislative approach—from piecemeal amendment to a systematic recasting of the statute as a whole.

Beyond conforming its terminology to the recent restructuring of the administrative agencies, the revision considers how the Trademark Law fits together with other statutes, harmonizing legal terminology and institutional rules and thereby strengthening the coherence and internal consistency of the legal framework.

Substantively, it makes across-the-board adjustments responsive to emerging needs—enabling technological innovation, tightening the governance of trademark registration, reinforcing the genuine-use requirement, and extending the reach of legal regimes—with a view to advancing the digital economy, supporting high-quality economic and social development, fostering a sound business environment, and safeguarding the interests of domestic enterprises expanding into overseas markets.

What themes or policy priorities emerge when you look across the revisions as a whole?
The fifth revision responds to issues of widespread public concern in recent years. It further opens up the categories of signs capable of constituting a registrable trademark, strengthens use requirements to curb bad-faith filings and trademark hoarding, enhances the protection of unregistered well-known marks, delineates more clearly the scope of protection afforded to collective and certification marks, checks improper enforcement and abuse of rights by trademark proprietors, and tightens the regulation of trademark agencies to deter unethical activities.

For a foreign brand owner, what are the top three things they need to do now to be ready for the new law, which comes into effect in January 2027?
First, to improve the efficiency of trademark registration and streamline examination procedures, the opposition period has been shortened to two months. Foreign brand owners may therefore need to adjust the frequency of their trademark monitoring so they can identify and oppose potentially conflicting marks within this two-month window.

Secondly, the fifth revision further strengthens the protection accorded to registered trademarks and extends cross-class protection to unregistered well-known marks. This provides a basis for robust cross-class protection of foreign-owned brands that enjoy a high degree of reputation but have not yet been registered in China.

Thirdly, motion marks are now recognized as registrable trademarks, giving industries with a particular need to protect such signs a wider range of branding options.

In your view, which of the amendments will have the greatest practical impact on brand owners operating in China?
The revised law places greater weight on use than on registration. While retaining the registration-based system, it further strengthens use requirements.

Bad-faith filings are now addressed in a separate article, an ex officio cancellation mechanism is introduced, and the provision on registration obtained by improper means has been moved forward into the general provisions chapter. Together with the provision on filings made without any intention to use, it is set out as two separate paragraphs of a single article—the former directed at trademark stockpiling and the latter at registration by improper means. The result is that the improper-means provision now applies through both the pre- and post-registration stages.

The revised law recognizes motion marks as registrable trademarks for the first time. What prompted this change?
Broadening the range of registrable trademarks has long been the prevailing trend globally, and certain new international trade agreements likewise require members to further open up the categories of signs that may be registered as trademarks.

However, admitting nontraditional signs as registrable trademarks entails high examination costs, and the full opening-up of all categories of nontraditional marks will still need time. The Internet and entertainment industries have a relatively urgent need for motion marks—for example, boot-up animations on mobile phones, animated displays in application software, and animated production-company logos shown before a film begins. The fifth revision therefore opens up this particular category of marks in response to the pressing demands of e-commerce and digital industries.

The revised law introduces a new mechanism, Article 69, allowing CNIPA to confirm a mark’s well-known status for use in overseas proceedings, while largely maintaining the existing framework for well-known mark protection. How significant is this for Chinese brands going global?
In recent years, Chinese enterprises have frequently found their long-established brands and well-known trademarks registered by third parties in bad faith in overseas jurisdictions.

Where a Chinese enterprise’s mark enjoys substantial recognition, where that enterprise encounters trademark squatting or infringement in an outbound market, and where the disposition of the foreign proceeding turns on whether the mark is well-known in China, confirmation of well-known status may be made at the request of the party concerned. Such confirmation accords with the as-needed principle governing the protection of well-known trademarks under Chinese trademark law—namely, that well-known status is recognized only where its confirmation is necessary to resolve the issue at hand.

The provision furnishes institutional support, from both the registration and enforcement perspectives, for Chinese enterprises carrying established brands into overseas markets. It enables the proprietor of a well-known Chinese mark to resist bad-faith registration and infringement in the target jurisdiction and to secure the protection accorded to well-known marks abroad.

One notable change allows the trademark authority to cancel unused or generic trademarks ex officio. Do you expect this provision to help reduce trademark stockpiling and improve the availability of trademark resources
By the end of 2025, the number of valid registered trademarks in mainland China—excluding Hong Kong SAR, China; Macau SAR, China; and Taiwan, China—had reached 49.877 million, among which a large volume consisted of non-use marks arising from trademark hoarding and registration without intent to use.

The existing non-use cancellation regime, however, could be initiated only upon application and was therefore markedly passive. Members of the public generally lack the incentive to file cancellation applications on their own initiative, typically doing so only in trademark examination proceedings or infringement disputes when a prior registered mark stands in the way of their own interests. Nor could the administrative authorities intervene of their own accord.

As a result, large numbers of non-use trademarks have lain dormant in the register for years. The fifth revision introduces an ex officio cancellation regime, empowering the trademark administration department to cancel, on its own initiative, registered trademarks that have not been used for three consecutive years without justifiable reasons. This will help clear away non-use marks more effectively.

At the same time, it conveys to the market that a mark should be registered only where the applicant has a bona fide intention to use it in commerce, and that the goodwill or value of a brand accrues only through use of the mark in the course of trade.

Were you surprised by anything that has been omitted or included in the revisions? For example, co-existence agreements were discussed by practitioners as a possible area for reform, but they do not appear to have been included in the final legislation.
The fifth revision tightens the regulation of geographical names considerably. The geographical-name provision is not only set out as a standalone absolute ground for refusal, but Article 54(1) also treats an application to register a geographical name as a bad-faith filing, backed by corresponding administrative penalties.

Article 62, governing the use of trademarks, empowers the authorities to order rectification and impose administrative fines where a geographical name is used as an unregistered mark. Article 67 imposes supervisory obligations on trademark agents in respect of filings involving geographical names. The result is a tightly woven, multi-layered regulatory scheme with a pronounced administrative-enforcement character. Applied too broadly, it risks seriously impairing the legitimate branding needs of market participants. Clear and specific rules of application are therefore needed to guard against overreach.

Looking beyond this particular amendment, how do you see China’s trademark system evolving over the next decade, and what role do you think China can play in shaping the harmonization of global trademark practices?
Looking ahead, the range of registrable signs is likely to expand further, with categories such as scent marks gradually becoming registrable—a development consistent with the overall trajectory of trademark systems worldwide.

At the same time, the strength of trademark protection is likely to continue to increase. The fifth revision enhances the level of protection principally through the vehicle of unregistered well-known marks, which likewise aligns with international currents in well-known mark protection.

Viewed from another angle, of course, the boundaries of protection must equally be managed through the doctrine of fair use, encouraging the legitimate exercise of rights. The introduction of a nominative fair-use rule in the fifth revision represents an effort in precisely that direction.

Beyond this, trademark law is likely to place greater weight and emphasis on use, properly situating registration as serving use and combating bad-faith registration and trademark stockpiling. Chinese trademark law is likely to figure ever more prominently in efforts to harmonize international standards of trademark protection.

Although every effort has been made to verify the accuracy of this article, readers are urged to check independently on matters of specific concern or interest. The opinions expressed in this interview are those of the person being interviewed and do not purport to reflect the views of INTA or its members.

Topics Bad Faith Fair Use Trademark Office Rules and Procedures Trademarks China First to File Foreign Trademarks