Key Highlights of the Newly Revised Trademark Law

The 23rd session of the 14th Standing Committee of the National People's Congress passed the newly revised Trademark Law on June 26, which will take effect on January 1, 2027.

As a vital component of intellectual property, trademarks are not only carriers of goodwill and symbols of integrity but also core tools for enterprises to compete in the market. How does the newly revised Trademark Law address new challenges and issues that have plagued the industry's development, while better safeguarding the interests of business operators and consumers? "Xinhua Viewpoint" reporters interviewed experts and scholars on this topic.

Highlight 1: Cracking Down on "Deceptive Trademarks" to Protect Consumer Rights

In recent years, consumers have fallen victim to "deceptive trademarks"—from chargers labeled "120W" that do not actually deliver that power, to noodles claimed to be "handmade" but actually produced by machines. Data shows that since 2023, the National Intellectual Property Administration has rejected 1.273 million applications for trademarks that could easily mislead consumers.

"Trademarks are used to identify the source of goods and services; they cannot be deliberately combined or disassembled to serve as disguised advertisements for false publicity," said Guan Yuying, a researcher at the Institute of Law of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. She noted that this revision follows a problem-oriented approach, promptly responding to public concerns, which will help improve the trademark system and combat abuse of rights.

The current Trademark Law explicitly stipulates that deceptive marks that are likely to mislead the public about the quality, characteristics, or origin of goods shall not be used as trademarks. However, in practice, such conduct often occurs during the post-registration use phase, making it difficult for administrative authorities to detect clues in a timely manner, resulting in enforcement lags.

This revision further strengthens the consumer protection orientation. On one hand, it increases penalties for using registered trademarks in ways that mislead the public; on the other hand, it introduces a complaint and reporting mechanism, stipulating that any entity or individual has the right to file complaints or reports with the trademark administration or enforcement authorities against illegal acts of using registered trademarks in a misleading manner.

"The newly revised Trademark Law effectively combines social supervision with administrative oversight, which not only reduces the cost of rights protection for consumers but also helps improve the quality of trademark examination from the source, preventing unqualified trademarks from entering the market," said Ma Yide, Dean of the School of Intellectual Property at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Highlight 2: Curbing Bad-Faith Registrations and Regulating Trademark Use

China has become a major trademark power. By the end of 2025, the number of valid registered trademarks in China (excluding Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan) had reached 49.877 million. At the same time, bad-faith trademark registrations have remained persistently high, with over 200,000 such cases cracked down upon in the first halves of 2023 and 2024 respectively.

Du Ying, a professor at the Law School of the Central University of Finance and Economics, pointed out that in recent years, many hot names have been maliciously preemptively registered, and practices such as "trademark hoarding," "riding on well-known brands," and "free-riding on hot topics" have disrupted market order and severely harmed the development of China's trademark brand ecosystem.

This revision addresses the prominent issue of "prioritizing registration over use" by explicitly including "applications for trademark registration that are not intended for use and clearly exceed normal business needs" within the scope of refusal. It also specifies the circumstances of malicious trademark applications and stipulates that if such acts cause adverse effects, the trademark enforcement authorities shall issue a warning and may impose a fine of up to 100,000 yuan.

Many hoarded registered trademarks remain idle for long periods, wasting administrative resources and becoming tools for malicious enforcement and market disruption. The newly revised law strengthens the trademark withdrawal mechanism, explicitly authorizing the trademark administrative authority to revoke registered trademarks that have become generic names or have been unused without justifiable reasons for three consecutive years.

"A trademark is not a 'collectible' but a 'tool for use'; its value derives from the goodwill accumulated through market use, not from the registration certificate itself," said Ma Yide. He suggested that in the future, the institutional orientation of "combining registration with use" should be further reinforced, with enhanced examination of actual use, so as to compress the space for profiting solely from hoarding registrations and ensure that trademark resources better serve genuine business activities.

Highlight 3: Strictly Regulating Agency Chaos and Strengthening Industry Self-Discipline

In recent years, disorder in the trademark agency market has become prominent, with agencies participating in or assisting malicious preemptive registrations, hoarding and reselling trademarks, and other illegal activities that frequently emerge in new forms and even form a gray industrial chain.

"The difficulty in regulating the trademark agency market lies in the uneven quality of practitioners and inadequate self-regulatory mechanisms of industry organizations. How to effectively curb this chaos through legal means is also a noteworthy issue in this revision," said Guan Yuying.

To address this, the newly revised Trademark Law not only strengthens the filing and recordation management of trademark agencies and their practitioners but also adds provisions defining trademark industry organizations and their functions.

The revised law stipulates that trademark industry organizations are self-regulatory bodies of the trade, which shall strengthen industry self-discipline, formulate self-regulatory rules and disciplinary standards, conduct business training and professional ethics and practice discipline education, organize and guide members to engage in trademark agency business in accordance with laws and regulations, continuously improve service standards, and impose disciplinary measures on members who violate self-regulatory rules.

"Industry self-discipline, as a useful supplement to government regulation, can leverage the professional advantages and self-management functions of industry organizations, forming a positive interactive pattern of mutual cooperation and reinforcement between government supervision and industry self-regulation," said Du Ying.

Highlight 4: Strengthening Well-Known Trademark Protection to Support Enterprises Going Global

Cases such as the preemptive registration of Luckin Coffee's trademark in Thailand and "Shaoxing Huadiao Wine" and "Nverhong" in Japan have emerged as Chinese enterprises accelerate their global expansion. The overseas preemptive registration activities carried out or facilitated by certain agencies have already impacted the overseas deployment of Chinese companies.

The newly revised Trademark Law stipulates that where, during overseas trademark examination, approval, or case handling, it is necessary to prove that a trademark is well known by the relevant public in China, upon the request of the interested party, the trademark administrative authority may make a determination regarding the well-known status of the trademark in accordance with relevant regulations.

"This will, to a certain extent, curb the phenomenon of preemptive registration abroad of Chinese time-honored brands and trademarks with certain fame, while also facilitating the protection of well-known Chinese trademarks when they encounter preemptive registration or infringement overseas, thereby providing institutional support for Chinese enterprises going global," said Du Ying.

In addition, this revision further regulates cross-border trademark agency practices, strengthening oversight of overseas trademark transactions obtained through fraud or other improper means, to prevent malicious preemptive registrations and illegal agency activities from extending overseas.

"The trademark system protects commercial goodwill built on genuine business operations, not mere preemptive registration acts. This helps protect the long-term brand value accumulated by enterprises and prevents others from unfairly free-riding," said Ma Yide.

Experts suggest that enterprises should still adhere to a "trademark-first" strategy when going global, making international layout and registration applications as early as possible before entering overseas markets, and combining legal measures with business strategies to reduce the risk of overseas preemptive registration.