Why you should register your trademark in China before the first meeting

European companies routinely arrive in China with a strong brand at home and no protection where they are about to trade. Then they meet distributors, send samples, exhibit at a trade fair, and discover months later that their mark has been registered by someone else.

This is not a loophole being exploited. It is largely how the system is designed, and the practical response is simple: file early.

What first-to-file means in practice

China's Trademark Law (currently the 2019 amendment, administered by the China National Intellectual Property Administration, CNIPA) grants trademark rights to the first party to file a registration, not to the first party to use the mark in commerce. Article 3 gives the registrant exclusive rights once the mark is registered. Your reputation in Europe, your registrations elsewhere, and the fact that you invented the name are, outside narrow exceptions, not the point. The register decides.

Those exceptions exist but are narrow and hard to rely on. Article 32 blocks a registration obtained by unfair means where the applicant knew the mark was already used by someone else and it had built some influence (有一定影响) in China, and Article 15 specifically blocks an agent or representative from registering, in their own name, a mark belonging to the party they represent. Both require proof of a prior relationship or prior use with real reach in China. If neither applies to your situation, the first filer wins by default.

The practical consequence is uncomfortable: the people best positioned to file against you are the ones you are about to talk to. A prospective distributor learns your brand, your product range and your expansion timing in the first meeting. Filing costs them very little, and Article 4, added by the 2019 amendment to let CNIPA reject applications made without genuine intent to use, is aimed at professional squatters filing hundreds of marks, not at a distributor filing the one brand you just showed them.

Register in the groups you will actually use

China examines applications not just by the 45 Nice classes but within each class by finer similar groups (类似群组), a Chinese-specific sub-classification. Goods inside the same similar group are treated as similar by default; goods in a different similar group within the same class generally are not, even if an outsider would call them the same product line. A registration that looks correct at class level can leave the specific similar group covering your goods unprotected, which is exactly where a squatter will file next.

Register the Chinese-character version of your name as well, in the classes and groups that matter, and consider whether an international registration through the Madrid Protocol designating China suits your filing programme better than a direct national filing. For a single priority market like China, a direct CNIPA filing is usually faster to prosecute and easier to defend, but the Madrid system can be efficient where China is one of several designated countries in the same application. If you do not choose a Chinese name yourself, the market will choose one for you, and you will end up defending a name you never picked.

Why losing the mark costs more than the registration fight

The damage runs beyond the registration dispute itself. Chinese customs record registered trademarks and can seize goods bearing a mark that infringes a local registration, including your own goods if a squatter's registration technically covers them. Marketplaces such as Tmall and JD also require a matching Chinese trademark registration before they will open a brand store, so a missing filing can delay a market entry that is otherwise ready to launch.

If it has already happened

It is not always lost. A registration obtained through fraud or other improper means can be invalidated under Article 44, and Article 49's second paragraph allows anyone to apply to cancel a registered mark that has sat unused for three consecutive years without proper reason. Both routes require evidence: of the improper conduct for Article 44, or of the registrant's inability to show use for Article 49. Neither is quick, and while either runs you cannot safely sell under the disputed mark in China.

A change is coming

The National People's Congress Standing Committee passed a revised Trademark Law in June 2026, which takes effect on 1 January 2027 and renumbers several of the provisions above alongside tightening penalties on bad-faith filers. Companies filing now should file under the current law and revisit their portfolio once the revision is in force.

The rule

File before the first serious conversation. Not before shipping, not before signing a distribution agreement: before the meeting where you explain what you sell. If you are entering the Chinese market for the first time, a China market entry study puts trademark filing on the same timeline as the rest of your entry plan. If a mark has already been taken, dispute resolution in China covers the invalidation or cancellation route, and an ongoing legal retainer covers the filings and monitoring that keep this from happening again in the next market you enter.