CN Trademark Law Changes - Latest Dec 2025 Draft

Thanks for the heads-up fromAaron WiningerofSchwegman Lundberg & Woessner, P.A., the China National People's Congress has announced the most recent draft Chinese Trademark Law revision on 27 December 2025 at the link below as the New Year present, setting the deadline comment to be 9 February 2026:

http://www.npc.gov.cn/flcaw/userIndex.html?lid=ff8081819aedd494019b54ed2c6476f2

The last draft was in early 2023 from the CNIPA. TheIntellectual Property Owners Association (IPO)submitted comments for this 2023 draft (the IPO 2023 comments).

The article numbers below are those in the current new draft.

[My own observations are in square brackets and in italic below]

Other than some clarification changes (like changing all recitation of the Trademark Office to CNIPA), the major (in my view) changes are as below, with the more important ones on the top:

• For tackling bad faith registration, article 23 narrows to require "prior legitimate rights" (current law only requires "prior rights"), and added intentional element for already used trademark. The same intentional element is also added to article 53 defining actions that are considered as bad faith.[These changes may significantly raise the difficulties to tackle bad faith registrations, as now an examiner or a right owner would have to prove the rights to be legitimate, and the bad faith registration is intentional. I suggest removing these changes, in particularly the intentional requirement.]
• Opposition period is reduced to 2 months (current law is 3 months) in articles 35 and 38.[This could affect foreign rights owner significantly, as there would be 1/3 time less than present to oppose a trademark registration. I suggest maintaining the current 3 months opposition period as in the IPO 2023 comments, which unfortunately was not accepted.]
• There are new provisions governing owners of collective and certification trademarks:

1) Article 46 requires that the assignee shall have corresponding legal capacity and supervision capability.[Does this mean that the assignment of such marks may be blocked by the CNIPA if the CNIPA or whoever determines that the assignee is not qualified, particularly as a foreign assignee?]

2) Article 59 stipulates that there would be sanctions against the owner for refusal of use without proper reasons, in addition to failure to perform supervision duties and abusive use of rights that harm public interest.

• To refuse registration based on non-use, the requirement "apparently exceeding normal production needs" is added (article 18).[This seems to respond to the IPO 2023 comments that the introduction of the use or committed to use requirement.]
• Article 9 specifies that application and use of trademark shall not jeopardize national interest, public interest or third-party's legitimate interest.[However, as in the 2023 draft, there is no clear definition of these, which the IPO 2023 comments asked for further clarification but were not accepted.]
• While it is encouraging to see that animated logo is added to have trademark protection in article 14, the later article 17 generally rejects 3D, colour combination, sound and animated logo to obtain registration if any of these is resulted from the nature of the goods, being need to obtain technical effect, or adding substantive value to the goods.[Combining with the CNIPA's guidelines on the distinctiveness of unconventional trademarks issued in December 2023 reciting that the above non-conventional trademarks have no distinctiveness and therefore cannot be registered, I am not sure why bother adding animated logo to article 14. It is also disappointing that the IPO 2023 comments to allow relying on use to confer distinctiveness were not accepted.]
• Article 19 expands to include "prior applications" as basis of objection due to same or similarity (current law only incudes applications that have passed examination and have been published for opposition).
• Absolute grounds of exclusion in article 15 have the following changes:

1) Adding the name, flag, badge and emblem of the China Communist Party.

2) Broadening "name of place" to "name" of administrative division of county level or above.

• Article 20 changes to the broader wording "owner" to prevent registration of not the same or not similar well-known trademark that may still mislead the public (current law requires that these marks are registered in China).
• When handling the appeals against the CNIPA decisions on rejection, opposition and invalidation, the court is required to use the facts ascertained at that time (article 40).[While this may state the obvious, this may make such appeal to be much more difficult to overturn the CNIPA's decisions, as the court is likely to merely use the facts ascertained in the CNIPA's decisions that are generally supportive to the CNIPA's position. Further, the IPO 2023 comments were against this change as situations may change over time, which unfortunately remain unchanged in this draft.]
• Article 3 specifies that the following should be managed by department of at or above the county level within the relevant territory:

1) Trademark administration work (like promoting importance of trademark)

2) Trademark enforcement work

• New article 47 allows a trademark owner to surrender an existing registration.
• Article 55 adds that the trademark owner could terminate the license if the licensee failed to perform its quality assurance obligations.
• For misuse of registered trademark (including changing the trademark or other registration details), article 56 has the following changes:

1) Adding "using the registered trademark in a way misleading the public".

2) Changed that if no correction was made after the deadline, fines of RMB50k or below would be imposed, and the trademark registration would only be cancelled for severe cases (current law could directly cancel the registration).

• For trademark agencies:

1) Article 64 added that a trademark agent shall not act for or assist client to perform actions that jeopardize national interest, public interest or third-party's legitimate interest.

2) Article 66 added that a trademark agent shall not take instructions if the agent knows or should have known that the application is of bad faith.

It is encouraging to see that the IPO 2023 comments on repeated applications were accepted – the relevant provisions are gone.

On the other hand, the following that the IPO 2023 comments were not accepted, in addition to those mentioned above:

• The 15-day deadline for seeking review of a refusal and the 30-day deadline for appealing a refusal (article 36) remain unchanged, although these were asked to be increased to 30 and 60 days, respectively.
• Opposition petitioner still could not request a review for dissatisfying opposition decision (article 37).
• For suspension of CNIPA's procedure due to determining of existing rights, this has been worsened from "may" to "generally may", instead of the suggested "shall" (article 40).

Overall there are many good changes in this draft (in my view), for example the changes in article 15, 20, 55, 56, 64 and 66. However, there are changes that could be problematic, for example those in articles 23 and 53, and 40.

As always, any comments are welcomed.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.