What Is Changing in China’s Trademark Law From 2027?
On 26 June 2026, China adopted a comprehensively revised Trademark Law, the first full revision since the statute first came into force in 1983.
The revised law takes effect on 1 January 2027, and it expands the statute from 8 chapters and 73 articles to 9 chapters and 87 articles, including a new chapter devoted specifically to the conditions for trademark registration.
China’s system remains fundamentally registration-based, and registration is still the foundation of trademark rights. What changes is the emphasis placed on what happens around and after registration: whether an application has a genuine business rationale, whether a registered mark is actually used, whether it is used properly, how consumers interpret a particular use, and how the commercial consequences of infringement are proved.
For international companies, and especially those managing multi-jurisdiction portfolios across the GCC, India and Asia, this is a practical compliance and strategy question, not just a legal update. Below are the six changes most likely to affect how brand owners manage and enforce trademarks in China, along with what to review before the law takes effect.
Why Did China Revise a Law That Has Stood Since 1983?
The short answer: China’s trademark system has matured, and trademark hoarding, bad-faith squatting, and disputes over what a registration actually protects have grown alongside it. The revision responds directly to those pressures, while preserving the registration-based structure that has defined Chinese trademark practice for over 40 years.
Rather than rewriting the system from scratch, the amendments sharpen specific mechanisms across the trademark lifecycle: filing, opposition, use requirements, enforcement, damages and digital brand recognition. The result is a law that still rewards early registration but increasingly expects that registration to reflect a real, ongoing business use case.
How Does the New Law Treat Trademarks That Are Not Genuinely Used?
Use now plays a larger role throughout the trademark lifecycle, from filing through to enforcement.
Article 19: Applications Without a Genuine Business Purpose
Under the current law, a bad-faith application “not intended for use” must be rejected. Revised Article 19 changes the test: an application will not be registered if it is not intended for use and clearly exceeds normal production or business needs. Both elements must be present, so the provision does not create a blanket obligation to prove use for every filing.
This matters most for defensive filings, a common practice for companies that register beyond their current product lines to protect future expansion or block squatters. The law does not define “normal production or business needs,” and there is no specific statutory safe harbour for defensive registrations. CNIPA commentary suggests the more objective standard is intended to separate legitimate defensive filings from malicious stockpiling, but the practical boundary will depend on implementing rules and examination practice that have not yet been issued.
- Do not treat Article 19 as a reason to abandon defensive portfolios outright.
- Do review why each defensive registration is being maintained and whether a credible business rationale exists.
Article 57: Non-Use Cancellation Gets an Official Trigger
The existing rule already lets a third party apply to cancel a registered mark unused for three consecutive years without justification. Revised Article 57 keeps that mechanism and adds a new one: the trademark authority itself may now initiate cancellation where a mark has become generic or has gone unused for three years without justification. The detailed procedure for this ex officio power is left to further rules.
Article 78: A Fixed Reference Point for Non-Use Damages Defences
Where a defendant argues the asserted trademark was unused, revised Article 78 fixes the relevant period as the three years before the infringement occurred. The current law simply refers to the “preceding three years” without anchoring that period, leaving room for disputes about the correct reference date. The amendment closes that gap and prevents the analysis from turning on use that only began after the alleged infringement.
What Happens If a Registered Trademark Is Used to Mislead Consumers?
New Article 56 introduces administrative consequences, including fines, for using a registered trademark in a way that misleads the public. If the conduct is not corrected, the registration can eventually be cancelled. In practice, this means holding a certificate is only part of managing a China trademark; how the mark is actually presented and used in the market now carries direct regulatory risk.
How Are Bad-Faith Trademark Filings Punished Under the New Law?
China has targeted trademark hoarding and squatting for several years, and the 2026 revision builds on that groundwork rather than starting fresh. Revised Article 54 specifies the conduct that can trigger administrative sanctions, with fines of up to RMB 100,000, but only where the malicious application has caused adverse effects. It is not accurate to describe Article 54 as an automatic fine for every rejected bad-faith filing.
Sanctionable conduct includes knowingly applying for prohibited signs, filings that violate Article 19, and intentional violations involving well-known trademarks, agency or representative relationships, or prior legitimate interests.
Article 19 also becomes more versatile as an enforcement tool: a registration that violates it can be challenged under Article 50 without the five-year limitation period that applies to the relative grounds under Article 51. Invalidation claims under Articles 20 to 24 generally remain subject to the five-year limit, except that a well-known trademark holder is not bound by it in cases of bad-faith registration.
Why Is the Trademark Opposition Period Getting Shorter?
The opposition window is being reduced from three months to two months. On paper, that is a small procedural change. In practice, it compresses the time available for an internal decision to oppose a filing, especially for organisations where the decision has to move through local counsel, regional counsel, global IP, and sometimes the business itself before instructions are issued.
A trademark watching service that flags a problematic filing immediately is only useful if the internal escalation chain can act on it in time. Stronger tools against bad-faith filings should not be mistaken for a reduced need to monitor; if anything, early detection and faster internal sign-off become more important once the shorter window applies.
Can a Competitor Legally Refer to Your Registered Trademark?
For the first time, the Trademark Law itself defines a trademark as a sign used to identify and distinguish the source of goods or services, and revised Article 2 expressly states that trademark use includes use through the internet and other information networks.
Revised Article 73 builds on that definition. The current law already prevents a trademark owner from monopolising descriptive elements such as generic names, product characteristics, or geographical names. The revised provision expands those categories and adds a new rule on referential use: where another party uses a registered mark only to describe the purpose, applicable object, or intended use of its own goods or services, or to identify their true source, the trademark owner cannot prohibit that legitimate use, unless it is likely to cause confusion.
This is directly relevant to compatible products, repair and maintenance services, resale, and any business that has a genuine need to reference another party’s brand. It does not create an unrestricted right to use someone else’s trademark; the determining question remains whether the presentation crosses from truthful information into implying a commercial relationship that does not exist.
A Real-World Illustration: Louis Vuitton v. Molly Tea
The first-instance Louis Vuitton v. Molly Tea judgment, decided under the current law, illustrates that confusion question well, even though it predates and is not an interpretation of new Article 73. The court found that consumers were unlikely to believe the tea products themselves came from Louis Vuitton, given the differences in pricing and positioning. It nevertheless found that consumers could believe the parties had entered a co-branding or other commercial arrangement, based partly on consumer comments reflecting that perceived association. The court found infringement and awarded RMB 10.3 million in total economic loss and reasonable enforcement expenses.
The same use of a mark can be legitimate when it truthfully explains compatibility or source, and problematic when the overall impression suggests authorisation, sponsorship, or collaboration. As licensing, collaborations, and cross-category branding grow more common, that distinction will matter more, not less.
How Does the Revised Law Protect Well-Known Trademarks?
Revised Article 21 makes a significant change for well-known marks. Under the current Article 13, an unregistered well-known mark is protected against copying, imitation, or translation only on identical or similar goods where confusion is likely; protection on dissimilar goods is reserved for well-known marks already registered in China.
The revised provision removes that distinction. For dissimilar goods or services, protection now extends to another party’s well-known trademark without requiring prior registration in China. CNIPA’s official explanation describes this as extending cross-class protection without distinguishing between registered and unregistered well-known marks.
The law also shifts the terminology from “recognizing” a well-known trademark to “confirming” its well-known status, and expressly allows that confirmation in certain unfair competition proceedings when necessary to resolve the dispute. Confirmation still depends on case-specific factors: public recognition, the duration and geographic scope of use and promotion, and the mark’s prior protection record.
This is a meaningful safety net for foreign brands whose reputation in China has outpaced their filing programme, but proving well-known status remains evidence-intensive. It is a supplement to registration, not a substitute for it.
How Will Trademark Infringement Damages Be Calculated?
Revised Article 77 restructures how damages are calculated. Under the current Article 63, the sequence starts with the rights holder’s actual loss, moves to the infringer’s profit if loss is difficult to determine, and falls back to a multiple of the licence fee if neither figure can be established. Revised Article 77 places actual loss and infringer’s profit on an alternative footing: either can be used, with the licence-fee method still available if both are difficult to establish.
The threshold for punitive damages also changes, from “malicious” infringement to “intentional” infringement, while the existing one-to-five-times multiplier and the RMB 5 million statutory damages ceiling remain unchanged. Reasonable enforcement expenses are not a new remedy; the current law already provides for them. What changes is the drafting, with reasonable expenses now stated separately from the damages calculation itself.
The Louis Vuitton v. Molly Tea case also shows why the statutory formula is only part of a damages strategy. The court rejected an approach that treated individual franchise stores’ operating profits as the franchisor’s own profits, since the two are separately operated and accounted for. It instead looked at how the franchisor itself earned revenue, including franchise cooperation fees and brand-management fees, before awarding RMB 10 million in economic loss on a discretionary basis, plus RMB 300,000 in reasonable enforcement expenses.
The lesson extends beyond this case: a retailer, a franchisor, a licensor and an online platform monetise a brand differently. Understanding how a defendant actually generates revenue, and which part of it is credibly linked to the infringing conduct, matters more than which damages formula is technically available.
Are Dynamic Logos and Digital Brand Elements Now Protectable?
The revised law expressly adds dynamic signs to the list of signs capable of registration, subject to the usual distinctiveness requirements and new functional exclusions. CNIPA has specifically cited mobile-phone startup animations as an example of the kind of sign this amendment is designed to accommodate.
Combined with Article 2’s recognition of trademark use through information networks, this is a direct response to brand identity increasingly living in software interfaces and digital products rather than static logos alone.
Digital brand protection, however, still extends beyond trademark law. In one Shanghai enforcement case, an operator ran a WeChat account called “ChatGPT Online,” using an image closely resembling OpenAI’s official branding and describing the service as a Chinese version of ChatGPT, despite simply reselling access to OpenAI’s underlying model through an API to more than 4,200 paying users. Regulators treated the conduct as commercial confusion under the Anti-Unfair Competition Law and imposed an administrative fine. That case predates the new Trademark Law and was not a trademark decision, but it illustrates why online brand protection in China often requires trademark law, unfair competition law, copyright, and platform enforcement to work together rather than in isolation.
What Should International Companies Review Before January 1, 2027?
With just under five months until the revised law takes effect, a focused review now avoids reactive decisions later.
- Audit your China portfolio by business rationale, not just registration count. Separate marks supporting current business, realistic future extensions, genuine defensive needs, and registrations nobody can now justify.
- Strengthen evidence of genuine use. Sales records, distributor documentation, advertising, licensing materials and archived websites should exist before a non-use cancellation or infringement dispute begins, not be reconstructed afterward.
- Review digital and dynamic brand assets. If your business has a distinctive recurring animation, interface element or other dynamic brand feature, assess whether it now justifies its own registration.
- Treat the shorter opposition window as a process issue. Confirm that a suspicious filing can realistically be identified, reviewed internally and escalated to a decision-maker inside two months, not three.
- Watch for the implementing regulations. As of 11 August 2026, CNIPA’s official legislation database still lists the 2014 Implementing Regulations. At a 29 July 2026 press conference, authorities confirmed that amendments to both the Implementing Regulations and the Trademark Examination and Adjudication Guidelines are being advanced. Key questions, including the practical treatment of defensive filings under Article 19 and the ex officio cancellation procedure under Article 57, will only become clear once those rules are published.
This is best treated as the first practical update on a law that is final in text but still developing in application. Portfolio reviews, evidence preparation and internal escalation processes are worth addressing now, ahead of further guidance closer to the effective date.
Conclusion: Registration Is Still the Foundation, But It Is No Longer the Whole Story
China’s 2027 Trademark Law revision does not abandon its registration-based system, but it raises the bar on what a registration is expected to represent: a genuine business use, properly maintained and defensible under closer scrutiny. For international companies with existing or planned China trademark portfolios, the practical work is not waiting for the effective date. It is reviewing the portfolio, tightening evidence of use, and making sure internal decision-making can keep pace with a shorter opposition window.
