On 26 June 2026, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress adopted a revised Trademark Law, and it takes effect on 1 January 2027. It is the deepest overhaul of the system since 2013, and the message behind it is simple: in China, a trademark should be something you actually use, not a lottery ticket you file and wait on.
What actually changes
The final text holds few surprises for those who followed the December 2025 draft. It does not tear the system down. Instead, it takes what Chinese courts and the CNIPA were already doing in practice and gives it a firmer legal footing. Here are the changes that matter most for brand owners:
Selling online now counts. Using a mark on the internet, such as e-commerce platforms or social media, is expressly recognised as trademark use (Art. 2), so online sales can protect a mark from non-use attacks. Motion marks such as animated logos can also be registered (Art. 14), which helps digital-first brands.
Registration is harder to game. Bad-faith applicants, not just their agents, can be warned and fined up to RMB 100,000 (Art. 54). The CNIPA can cancel marks left unused for three years without anyone filing a complaint (Art. 57). The functionality bar now covers colours, sounds and motion marks as well as 3D shapes (Arts. 18, 73), so non-traditional marks are easier to challenge.
Use is policed, not just filing. Misleading use can bring fines of up to five times illegal turnover and even revocation (Art. 56). A new general good-faith rule bans abusing trademark rights to harm others (Art. 9). Courts can sanction fabricated or collusive lawsuits (Art. 81).
Famous foreign brands benefit. Well-known marks get cross-class protection even if they were never registered in China (Art. 21).
Owners have less time to react. The opposition window drops from three months to two (Art. 36), so watching new filings closely matters more than ever.
Squatting stops being a free bet
For years, the economics of trademark squatting in China were almost too good. Filing was cheap. If a foreign brand later showed up, the squatter could sell the mark back or use it to block the brand at customs. If nobody showed up, the squatter lost very little. The worst outcome was usually a refusal or an invalidation, years down the line.
The 2027 law changes that maths in three ways.
First, the risk now lands on the applicant. Under the old law, penalties for bad-faith filing mostly hit the trademark agencies. Article 54 goes after the person filing. Applications made without any genuine intention to use, and clearly beyond normal business needs, can now lead to a warning and a fine of up to RMB 100,000. The same applies to filings that knowingly target a well-known mark or a business partner’s brand, such as a distributor registering its supplier’s name.
Second, sitting on a mark becomes dangerous. The CNIPA can now cancel a registration that has gone unused for three consecutive years, and it can do so ex officio, without waiting for a rival to complain. The exact procedure still has to be set out in implementing rules. But the principle is clear: a mark that just sits in the register is living on borrowed time.
Third, clearing a blocking mark gets faster. Under the 2019 law, a brand owner who won a cancellation or invalidation often still faced a one-year bar before its own application could be approved. The new Article 49 limits that bar to cases where the owner voluntarily cancels its own mark. In practice, that means a legitimate brand can take back its name and move on much sooner.
What it means for foreign and Latin American brands
For brands from Europe and Latin America, this is mostly good news. But it is not a reason to relax.
The biggest win is for famous brands that never got round to filing in China. Until now, cross-class protection for well-known marks only applied if the mark was already registered there. Article 21 drops that requirement. A well-known wine, coffee or fashion label from Spain, Argentina or Mexico could, in principle, stop a squatter using its name even on unrelated goods. The catch is that you still have to prove the mark is well known in China, and that takes evidence, not reputation alone.
The second win is for brands that sell mainly online. Many Latin American exporters reach Chinese consumers through cross-border e-commerce rather than physical stores. The express recognition of online use means those sales can now count when someone tries to cancel the mark for non-use. That only helps, of course, if the evidence is kept: screenshots, platform records, invoices, campaign data.
The flip side is that the system now expects more from rights holders too. Opposition windows are shorter, so watching services have to be quicker. Marks filed defensively and never used are exposed to cancellation, even ex officio. And the new rules on misleading use mean that a mark suggesting a place of origin, a raw material or a quality the product does not have can draw fines or even revocation. That point deserves attention from food and beverage exporters whose branding leans heavily on origin.
It is also worth noticing what Article 69 says about where this is all heading. It lets the CNIPA confirm the well-known status of Chinese brands for use in foreign proceedings, and it extends sanctions to Chinese agents who help squat abroad. China is no longer only a place where foreign brands get squatted. Its own companies are now exporting brands, and Beijing wants to protect them. A cleaner domestic register is part of that bigger plan.
If you need additional information on how protecting trademarks in the European Union and also how to secure correct use in China, feel free to write here: info@ipwisely.com
