Insight · 2026-08-10
The Trademark Law was revised on 26 June 2026 and takes effect on 1 January 2027. Most of it is renumbering. Two things deserve an overseas filer's attention: one deadline gets shorter, and every article number you have bookmarked changes.
By HUANG Guowen 黄国文 — Director, Cross-border Department · Partner
If your company has no habitual residence or place of business in China, you must file through a lawfully established Chinese agency. That rule is why this firm exists, and the revision does not soften it — it hardens it, by lifting the qualifying language out of the Implementing Regulations and into the statute itself:
An applicant may handle a trademark registration application or other trademark matters on its own or through a lawfully established trademark agency. A foreigner or foreign enterprise applying for trademark registration or handling other trademark matters in China shall entrust a lawfully established trademark agency to handle the matter.
— Trademark Law, Article 18 · 《商标法》第十八条 — in force through 31 December 2026
Read with Article 5 of the Implementing Regulations, which defines "foreigner or foreign enterprise" as one with no habitual residence or place of business in China. A foreign company that has a branch or representative office here is not caught by this and may file on its own.
From 2027-01-01 this becomes Trademark Law (2026 Revision), Article 11(2) of the 2026 Revision, which writes the limitation into the statute itself and adds "other foreign organisation". The obligation is unchanged.
One correction to something you may read elsewhere: this is not “Articles 17 and 18 merged into Article 11”. The actual mapping is: Article 18(1) (file yourself or through an agency) becomes Article 10; Article 17 (reciprocity) becomes Article 11(1); Article 18(2) (mandatory agency for foreign parties) becomes Article 11(2), with “other foreign organisations” added.
From 1 January 2027, once a mark is preliminarily approved and published, anyone wanting to oppose it has two months instead of three. If you watch the register against your own brand — or rely on someone who does — the time between spotting a problematic publication and getting a reasoned opposition on file just shrank by a third. It argues for watching continuously rather than checking occasionally, and for having your evidence folder ready before the publication appears, not after.
The nine-month substantive examination stays. The fifteen-day window to contest a refusal stays. China remains strictly first-to-file. And the requirement to act through a Chinese agency stays — renumbered, not rethought.
The revision drops “the Trademark Office” and “the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board” (TRAB) as statutory names, replacing both with “the trademark administration department under the State Council”. Practical consequence: English-language guides that still route procedures through “the TRAB” are describing the pre-2027 world. It is a quick way to date any material you are reading — including ours, which is why every page here carries a check date.
Article 87 answers one question cleanly: marks registered before 1 January 2027 remain valid. What the statute does not spell out is procedure for applications pending at the changeover — for example, which opposition window applies to a mark published in late 2026. That will fall to implementing regulations or official guidance, and we would rather tell you “not yet settled” than guess. We track the primary sources; this page will be updated when the rules land.
General information, not advice on a specific matter. Author: HUANG Guowen, Director of the Cross-border Department — checked against the primary sources linked above.
