Someone filed your brand in China. Here is what actually works.

The email usually arrives in the same shape: a marketplace listing has been taken down, or a distributor mentions casually that "someone here already has that name", or a Chinese agency sends an unsolicited note offering to buy back a mark you have never heard of being registered.

The instinct is to treat it as extortion and ignore it, or to fire off a legal threat. Both are expensive. What follows is the decision tree we actually use, in the order we use it.

First, work out what you are dealing with

Not every conflicting registration is a squatter. The response changes completely depending on which of these you have:

Before anything else, confirm three facts: the registration or application number, its status (pending, registered, under examination, cancelled), and its class and goods list. A mark that is still pending can be opposed. A mark that registered three years ago and has never been used is a different kind of target. A mark in class 25 when you sell software may not be a problem at all.

The calendar decides your options

• Still in the three-month publication window: opposition. Cheapest and fastest route, decided before the mark ever registers.
• Registered less than five years ago: invalidation on relative grounds — earlier rights, bad faith, or conflict with a prior well-known mark.
• Registered more than five years ago: the five-year window for relative grounds has closed. Non-use cancellation becomes your main weapon, because it has no deadline.
• Any time: negotiation, or a design-around if the goods list is narrow.

The four routes, compared

1. Opposition

Filed within three months of publication, before registration. You argue that the application should not proceed: it conflicts with your earlier right, or it was filed in bad faith. It is the cheapest route and the only one that stops the mark from registering at all. If you miss the window it is gone permanently.

Realistic outcome: six to twelve months to a decision. CNIPA may reject the opposition and let the mark register, in which case invalidation is next.

2. Invalidation

Filed after registration, within five years for relative grounds. For a mark that is being used against you and is more than three years old, this is usually the substantive route: you are asking CNIPA to treat the registration as never having existed. Bad-faith filings can be attacked under Article 44, and prior rights under Article 32.

Evidence matters more than argument. The panel wants to see that your mark existed, that it was known, and that the applicant knew or should have known. Contracts, correspondence, marketplace screenshots, advertising spend and the applicant's filing history all go in.

3. Non-use cancellation (撤三)

Any person may apply to cancel a registration that has not been used for three consecutive years. This is the workhorse of China brand recovery, for one reason: squatting portfolios are built to hold marks, not to sell products under them.

The burden then shifts. The registrant has to produce evidence of genuine use in China during the relevant three-year period — invoices, packaging, advertising, contracts, tax records. Screenshots alone are weak. A registrant who cannot produce a paper trail loses the registration.

The catch: if the cancellation succeeds, the mark is gone but you still own nothing. File your own application on the same day, or earlier, so the path is clear when the decision lands.

4. Assignment

Buying the mark is legitimate and sometimes rational — particularly when the registrant is a real business, or when speed matters more than principle (a product launch, a retail contract, a marketplace reinstatement). The negotiation is a commercial one. Get a valuation anchored in what the alternative costs you: an invalidation, a rebrand, or a year of lost sales.

Insist on a written assignment recorded with CNIPA. An unrecorded transfer is not effective against third parties, and a squatter who has already sold the mark once may try to sell it again.

The evidence pack that decides cases

Whether you oppose, invalidate or negotiate, the same file does the work. Assemble it early:

• Priority date proof — your home registration or first use date, with certificates;
• Use in China before the filing date — export invoices, customs declarations, distributor agreements, marketplace listings with dates, trade show participation, WeChat or Weibo posts;
• Reputation evidence — media coverage, advertising spend, awards, follower counts, sales volumes by year;
• Relationship evidence — the distribution contract, the manufacturing agreement, the employment record, email threads;
• The applicant's pattern — a list of their other filings. A portfolio of well-known foreign brands is the strongest single indicator of bad faith;
• Your own Chinese filings — evidence that you were building in China rather than only complaining afterwards.

Three things not to do

• Do not send threats you will not execute. An aggressive letter that is not followed by an action signals that you are not serious, and it hands the other side a date-stamped record of when you learned about the registration.
• Do not sue for infringement first. In China the registrant holds the presumed right. Suing before the registration is cancelled usually fails and can expose you to a counterclaim.
• Do not ignore the platform complaint. Marketplace takedowns escalate: repeated complaints can suspend a store, not just a listing. Respond through the platform's appeal channel with your evidence while the substantive action runs.

What a realistic timeline looks like

Anyone promising a three-month resolution is describing the filing, not the outcome. Budget a year, and plan the market around it.

The cheaper version of this article

Every case above costs more than the filing that would have prevented it. The prevention list is short:

• File in China before you sign a distributor, before your first trade show, before your first marketplace listing;
• File the Chinese-character version at the same time, not later;
• Add class 35 if you sell through stores or marketplaces;
• Put a trademark ownership clause in every Chinese manufacturing and distribution contract, with a liquidated-damages figure that is actually enforceable;
• Run a watch service so you see new filings during the publication window, when opposition is still cheap;
• Record your registration with China Customs — it is free, and it stops counterfeit exports at the border.

If you are already past the prevention stage, send us the registration number and what you know about the other side. We will tell you within a few days which of the four routes is worth your money — including when the honest answer is "this one is not worth pursuing".