On 27 December 2025, China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) published the Draft Amendment to the Trade Mark Law of the People’s Republic of China for public consultation. This marks the fifth amendment to the law.
The Draft Amendment is made up of nine chapters and 84 articles, notably more concise than the earlier 2023 draft version published by China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA), which contained 101 articles. The Draft Amendment introduces systematic adjustments focusing on clarifying registration requirements, regulating registration practices, optimising examination procedures, strengthening administration, and enhancing protection of trade-mark rights.
Key amendments
Expanded registrability of non-traditional marks
The Draft Amendment explicitly recognises dynamic marks as an acceptable type of registrable signs. Registrable signs now expressly cover text, graphics, letters, numbers, three-dimensional marks, colour combinations, sounds, dynamic marks, and combinations of these elements. The inclusion of dynamic marks is particularly notable as it explicitly recognises evolving brand presentation in digital and multimedia contexts. This codifies existing practice on non-traditional marks and invites brand owners to consider protection strategies beyond conventional word and device marks.
Enhanced well-known trade mark protection
The Draft Amendment extends protection for well-known trade marks by prohibiting bad-faith registration on dissimilar goods where such use is likely to mislead the public and cause potential harm to the interests of the well-known trade mark holder, regardless of whether the well-known mark has been registered in China. Previously, cross-class protection was more limited and in practice typically required the well-known mark to have been registered in China. If adopted in its current form, this provision provides stronger legal basis for cross-class protection of trade marks that are widely recognised in China, even if not yet registered. Recognition of well-known status, however, remains case-specific, granted as needed upon request with a high evidentiary threshold in practice.
Stricter penalties for bad-faith trade mark registration and misleading use
The Draft Amendment explicitly provides that trade mark applications filed without an intent to use and significantly exceeding normal business needs will not be registered. Detailed administrative penalties are introduced for bad-faith trade mark filings that cause adverse impact, where malicious applicants may face warnings and fines up to RMB 100,000. The draft also preserves the three-year non-use cancellation rule with specified decision timelines and enhanced penalties for misleading use or unauthorised changes to registered particulars, ranging from rectification orders to administrative fines and cancellation of registration depending on the actual cases. These measures strengthen deterrence for bad-faith trade mark registrations and misleading use.
Shortened opposition period
The Draft Amendment shortens the opposition period from three months to two months from publication of the preliminary approval. This change places greater pressure on brand owners to implement robust monitoring systems and maintain organised evidence portfolios to respond swiftly. Companies should review their trade-mark monitoring system and internal workflows to ensure they can act decisively within the tighter deadline against the preliminary approval, particularly for international companies where coordination across multiple jurisdictions may be required.
Tightened use and licensing rules
The Draft Amendment tightens use and licensing rules to safeguard quality and market transparency. In addition to existing requirements that licensees must ensure quality of goods bearing the mark and that licence agreements should be filed for recordal to be effective against bona fide third parties, the Draft Amendment explicitly grants licensors the right to terminate the trade mark licence agreement where the licensee fails to fulfil quality assurance obligations. This amendment strengthens licensors’ enforcement tools and underscores the importance of maintaining quality control throughout the licensing relationship.
Strengthened regulation of trade-mark agencies
The Draft Amendment tightens governance over trade-mark agencies and practitioners. Agencies must avoid conflicts of interest, refrain from facilitating filings that they know or should have known to be in violation of registration requirements and avoid deceptive solicitation. Practitioners are barred from accepting instructions independently from their firms or concurrently serving multiple agencies. These measures reflect a push to improve professional conduct and application quality.
Notable omissions from earlier 2023 draft
Certain provisions from the 2023 draft version were not retained. The controversial “one-mark-per-class” rule, mandatory five-year use declarations, and compulsory ownership transfer mechanisms in invalidation proceedings have been dropped. This suggests a more balanced approach, focusing on measures that are more operationally mature and broadly supported.
Summary
The Draft Amendment reflects a deliberate legislative approach prioritising codification of operationally feasible reforms while ensuring alignment with related domestic legislation and international standards.
For rights holders, the draft signals clear legislative intent to strengthen cross-class protection for well-known trade marks and combat bad-faith registrations. Securing trade-mark registrations in China for core brands at an early stage, however, remains the most reliable way to reduce enforcement costs and improve predictability. Brand owners should enhance monitoring of third-party applications, ensure robust use of evidence, update licensing frameworks to reflect recordal requirements and quality control obligations, and improve internal response efficiency and proactively build evidence dossiers demonstrating brand reputation to support timely opposition, invalidation or administrative enforcement actions where necessary.
The original publication can be found here (Chinese only).
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