Trademark and Brand Protection

China operates a first-to-file trademark system: rights generally belong to whoever registers first, not whoever used the mark first abroad. For an inbound brand, the most expensive mistake available is arriving with commercial momentum and discovering the name already belongs to someone else.

A defensible position starts with clearance and classification strategy — including the Chinese-character and transliterated forms of your marks that third parties are most likely to register opportunistically — and continues with filings in the classes where your business actually operates and the adjacent ones where squatters do.

Registration is the beginning rather than the end. Our watch service reviews newly published applications against your portfolio and puts opposition recommendations in front of you while the statutory window is still open, when acting costs hundreds rather than hundreds of thousands.

This engagement covers trademarks. Patent and design-right prosecution is a separately licensed profession in China with its own qualification requirements, and contentious enforcement — litigation or administrative action against an infringer — is work for qualified counsel. We do not hold ourselves out for either; where a matter turns into one, we say so and help you brief the right firm rather than carrying it further ourselves.