Oppose within the 3-month publication window — the cheapest fix.
Invalidation: within 5 years for relative grounds; no time limit for bad-faith attacks on well-known marks.
Non-use cancellation after 3 years of non-use — often the fastest clean route.
Prior use with influence in China, copyright in the logo, and the squatter's mass-filing pattern.
Send us the mark, the market, and any deadline. We will route it to the right practice lead within one business day.
Contact UsRecovery strategy starts with who filed your mark. A current or former distributor, OEM factory, or employee triggers specific legal provisions: Chinese law bars agents and parties with contractual or business ties from registering the principal's mark. A professional squatter with dozens or hundreds of hoarded marks is attacked differently — through the bad-faith and no-intent-to-use provisions, where the filing pattern itself is evidence. A genuine coincidental adopter, rarer than brand owners assume, may be a negotiation case rather than a fight.
If the squatted application is still within its three-month publication window, opposition is the cheapest and fastest fix. This is the strongest argument for running a watch service in China: the difference between an opposition and a post-registration invalidation is often a year of time and a multiple of the cost.
Against a registered mark, invalidation before CNIPA is the main weapon. Relative grounds — your prior mark, your prior use with a certain influence, the agent/representative bar, your copyright in the logo — must generally be raised within five years of registration. Bad faith changes the arithmetic: for well-known marks registered in bad faith there is no five-year limit, and the 2019 amendment's rule against applications filed without intent to use gives an additional hook against mass squatters.
Evidence wins these cases: dated proof of your brand's presence reaching China (sales, media, exhibitions, e-commerce), ownership chains for the logo artwork, and a documented picture of the squatter's portfolio — dozens of famous foreign marks in one applicant's name speaks for itself.
Squatters register; they rarely use. Once the registration is three years old, anyone can request cancellation for three consecutive years of non-use, and the burden of producing genuine use evidence falls on the registrant. Non-use cancellations are comparatively cheap, need no proof of your own rights, and pair naturally with a fresh application of your own timed to claim the cleared space.
Sometimes the commercial answer is a negotiated assignment — typically where the registration is young, genuinely in use, or your legal grounds are thin. Negotiation and legal attack are not alternatives: a pending invalidation or cancellation is the best price-reduction tool in the conversation. Approaches are usually made indirectly, without revealing the foreign brand's urgency.
One caution: pay for an assignment properly recorded with CNIPA, not for a promise. And check the squatter's other filings — buying one mark back while three variants remain in their name solves nothing.
Every recovery should end with a prevention file: your own applications covering the recovered mark's subclasses and Chinese-character versions, a watch service, and recordals with customs and the major platforms. Squatters re-file; the second time should hit a wall.
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.