Register your trademark in China before someone else does
Many foreign companies discover that their trademark is registered in China when it is too late: a distributor, a manufacturer or a stranger filed it first and can now block their shipments or demand payment. In China a trademark belongs to whoever registers it first, not to whoever uses it first.
Why it happens
A registration at home does not protect you in China: each country registers separately. Selling, manufacturing or simply offering products in China without registering your mark leaves the door open. Bad-faith filings are common precisely when a brand starts to grow in the Chinese market.
What to register
- The mark in Latin letters, in the classes of goods and services you use or will use.
- A Chinese-character version. The market will give you a Chinese name if you do not, and someone else can register that name too.
- The right subclasses. The Chinese system divides classes into subclasses; filing in a class without covering the relevant subclasses leaves gaps.
How the process works
The application is filed with the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA), can be done from abroad without travelling, and the registration lasts 10 years, renewable. Licences and assignments must be recorded with CNIPA to be valid against third parties, and it is worth recording the mark with Customs so that counterfeits are stopped at the border.
If someone has already registered it
There are options: opposition while the application is pending, invalidation if there was bad faith, and cancellation if the mark has not been used for three years. The 2019 law strengthened sanctions against bad-faith filings, and in malicious infringements courts can award damages of up to five times the harm. The sooner you act, the cheaper and faster it is.
In short
Register in China before you sell, manufacture or show your product there, include a Chinese name and monitor the register. At UB China we handle the clearance search, the application and the defence of your mark.
Book a consultationjubilla@ub-co.com
See also: China trademark registration
How to verify that a Chinese supplier is real
A professional website, a factory video and an attractive price do not prove that a Chinese company exists or can deliver. Before paying an advance, run seven checks. The first ones can be done from abroad; the last ones need someone in China.
1. The business licence and social credit code
Every Chinese company has a business licence with an 18-character unified social credit code. Ask for it and check in the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System that the Chinese name, code, address and legal representative match. The English name has no legal value: what counts is the Chinese name.
2. The authorised business scope
The licence states what the company may do. If it says "trading" rather than "manufacturing", you are dealing with an intermediary, not a factory. That is not illegal, but it changes the price, quality control and who you can claim against.
3. Capital, shareholders and age
A newly formed company, with minimal capital or frequent changes of shareholders and legal representative, deserves extra care. Since 2024 capital must be paid up within five years, so subscribed versus paid-in capital tells you a lot.
4. Litigation and defaulters
Chinese courts publish judgments and a list of debtors who fail to comply with court rulings. A company with many breach-of-contract cases, or on that list, is a clear red flag.
5. The bank account
Payment should go to an account in the name of the same company that signs the contract. If you are asked to pay an individual, another company or a Hong Kong account "for tax reasons", stop.
6. Licences, certificates and trademarks
Check that product certificates and export licences belong to that company and are valid, and that the brand you are offered is not registered by a third party.
7. The factory and the seal
A visit, or a third-party inspection in China, confirms that the factory exists and makes what it claims. When signing, the company's official seal is what binds it: check that it is the registered one.
When to get help
If the amount matters, the supplier is new or something does not add up, a legal check costs far less than losing an advance. At UB China we do it through China Legal Check, with lawyers in Shanghai who review the official records in Chinese.
Book a consultationjubilla@ub-co.com
See also: China due diligence
Resources
Resources
Ubilla & Cía. is permanently developing new resources for our clients, from traditional newsletters in our Media Room, and reports and memorandums in our Knowledge section, to our specialized web pages on legal frameworks: www.ichinalaw.com and www.ichilelaw.com.
Legal Management
Legal Management
Ubilla & Cía. is committed to improving the overall legal information management of our clients.
Through the years we have realized that many of the clients legal issues derive from a weak management of the legal information inside their organizations.
This does not only involve having the proper databases but understanding the implications of the legal framework in place through the process of permanent legal change.
Ubilla & Cía. has developed sophisticated information management tools for our clients, so that they can constantly see and oversee how their legal matters are unfolding, in conjunction with the proper data-base where all their documents are safely stored.
Tackling Legal Contingencies
Tackling Legal Contingencies
Legal contingencies are the result not only of complex and continuously changing legal systems, but most of all of increasingly complex social and business contexts.
These social and business contexts have local, regional and global elements to them and the overlapping of these elements can create unprecedented complexities and uncertainties.
In the context of a globalized society and a globalized economy, all relationships, including ´community relationships´ can be looked upon from a local, regional and global perspective.
Traditional legal practice tends to over-simplify the legal contingencies arising from these complex social contexts. Traditional legal practice is normally only ´reactive´, at best.
Ubilla & Cía. is committed to tackling the legal contingencies of our clients´ projects and undertakings, and for this purpose we take a broader approach to legal practice by (i) Looking at projects as embedded in the broader social context, locally, regionally and globally; and by (ii) Looking at projects from their ´internal perspective´, from the perspectives of the internal goals of the project, with a close understanding of the ´points of view´ of the project holders.
Intangibles & Innovation
Intangibles & Innovation
Intangibles have been traditionally linked to “economic assets” and intellectual property.
At Ubilla & Cía. we believe that this is too narrow of an approach to adequately help our clients to sustain and grow their undertakings.
At Ubilla & Cía., through the work with our clients, we have discovered that their success depends not only on traditional assets or intellectual property per se.
Their success starts much earlier than that in their organizational culture, in their understanding of their ´broader intangibles´, that encompass internal practices, values and other immaterial elements of different kind.
Ubilla & Cía. helps to create the legal framework that facilitates the legal delineation of those intangibles, so that innovation and the creation of value become not only possible but the driving force of the corresponding organization.