Insight · 2026-08-10
China joined the Apostille Convention in November 2023 and the news reached every legal newsletter. For trademark filing it changed nothing — because filing never required legalisation in the first place.
By HUANG Guowen 黄国文 — Director, Cross-border Department · Partner
The Apostille Convention replaces multi-step consular legalisation of public documents with a single certificate. For companies litigating in China — where corporate documents and evidence formed abroad face genuine formality requirements — that is a real simplification, and the accession deserved its coverage. The error was the leap that followed in a hundred summaries: “paperwork for China trademark filings just got easier.” Filing paperwork did not get easier. It was already this easy: a photocopy, a translation, a signature.
An apostille authenticates the origin of a public document. A power of attorney is a private document — to bring it into apostille territory you would first notarise it, and the apostille would then certify the notary, not the POA. Filing asks for neither step. The signed form itself is the requirement, which is also why our engagement process can send you a POA today and file when it comes back — no notary appointment on the critical path.
In court. Litigation is where identity documents and foreign-formed evidence meet genuine formality rules, and where the 2023 accession genuinely helps. In administrative review proceedings the requirements are conditional — they attach in defined situations, not across the board. In filing they are absent. Three different procedural worlds; most English-language checklists collapse them into one, and the collapsed version always lands on “get everything apostilled, to be safe”. Safe for whom is a fair question — that advice adds weeks and fees to a step that needs neither.
One genuine complication survived the good news: India objected to China's accession, so the Convention does not operate between China and India. An Indian company suing in China still walks the consular-legalisation road for its litigation documents. For filing, though, the analysis above holds unchanged — the list never asked for legalisation from anyone.
The three items, plus the detail that does cause rejections: the POA must state the nationality of the principal — a box, not a ceremony. The full guide carries the document trail and sources; how we engage shows where the POA sits in the five steps.
General information, not advice on a specific matter. Author: HUANG Guowen, Director of the Cross-border Department — checked against the sources carried in the guide linked above.
