A request for review must be filed within 15 days of receiving the refusal — one of the shortest windows in Chinese IP practice.
Prior similar marks in the same subclass (relative grounds); partial refusals are routine.
Review of refusal + non-use cancellation against the blocking mark + backup re-filing.
Review decisions can be appealed to the Beijing Intellectual Property Court.
Send us the mark, the market, and any deadline. We will route it to the right practice lead within one business day.
Contact UsCNIPA refusals come in two families. Absolute grounds concern the mark itself — descriptiveness, deceptiveness, prohibited signs, lack of distinctiveness. Relative grounds cite prior conflicting marks, and are by far the most common outcome for foreign applicants, because the register is crowded and conflicts are judged subclass by subclass.
Partial refusals are routine: the application is refused for some goods and approved for others. The approved part proceeds on its own; the refused part is what the deadline below applies to.
A request for review of refusal must be filed with CNIPA within 15 days of receipt of the refusal notice. That is barely time to translate the notice, evaluate the cited marks, and instruct an agent — which is why refusals of foreign-owned applications are so often abandoned by default. If your mark matters, the practical rule is: send the notice to your Chinese counsel the day you receive it, and treat the review filing as the default while you decide strategy.
For Madrid designations the provisional refusal arrives through WIPO, but the review still has to be filed in China, through a Chinese agent, on the same short timeline.
Against relative-grounds refusals, the workhorse arguments are differences in the marks and goods — including subclass carve-outs that neutralize the conflict — and attacks on the blocking mark itself. If the cited registration is more than three years old and looks dormant, a non-use cancellation filed in parallel is often the decisive move: if it succeeds, the obstacle disappears. Evidence of your mark's use and reputation in China supports distinctiveness and good faith. Letters of consent or coexistence agreements from the prior owner can help, though Chinese examiners treat them as persuasive rather than binding.
Against absolute-grounds refusals, the case is usually about evidence: showing acquired distinctiveness through use, or reframing how the sign will be perceived by the relevant Chinese public.
Reviews rarely travel alone. A typical response package combines the review of refusal, a non-use cancellation or invalidation against the cited mark, and sometimes a fresh backup application timed so that, if the cancellation clears the obstacle, the new filing sails through even if the review fails. Which combination makes sense depends on the cited mark's age, owner, and filing pattern — this is a decision to make once, quickly, with the whole board in view.
A refusal upheld on review can be appealed to the Beijing Intellectual Property Court within 30 days, and further to the Beijing High Court. Litigation is slower and costlier, but for core marks blocked by questionable citations it is a well-trodden path — and the courts overturn CNIPA more often than applicants expect.
This article is general information about Chinese IP practice, not legal advice for a specific matter. Rules, fees, and timelines change; confirm current requirements before acting. For advice on your situation, contact our team.