Foreign applicants can usually take two approaches to obtain trademark registration in China: one is to entrust a Chinese agency to directly submit a trademark application to the CNIPA; the other is to designate China through the Madrid international registration, for which the applicant's home country must be a member of the Madrid system.

How should a foreign applicant choose? We presented the pros and cons of both approaches to help the foreign applicant choose the one that suits them best. Generally, we recommend the national applications.

First of all, compared to the national application, the international application has the following two advantages:

1. Flexible standard for the description of the designated goods/services: The CNIPA adopts stricter standards for the description of the designated goods/services in the national application than in the international application. If the goods/services are emerging products/services, such as NFTs, we recommend filing an international application.

2. Save cost: If the applicant wants to cover many jurisdictions for the new applications, the filing cost for an international application may be relatively lower than filing the national application in each jurisdiction.

However, compared to the international application, the national applications in China have the following six advantages:

1. Short examination timeframe for national application: 6-9 months vs. 18-21 months.

2. Status updated timely: The applicant could timely know the status of the national applications. However, the official notifications in connection with the international applications sometimes may not be successfully served on the applicant by WIPO. As a result, the applicant may not timely know the status of the mark.

3. Easily respond to the official action: For the official action on the description of the designated goods, we still need to file a review application with the CNIPA, which is more expensive than responding to the national application.

4. Registration Certificate issued automatically: After the mark is registered, the China National Intellectual Property Administration will issue a trademark registration certificate automatically; but the CNIPA will not issue the trademark registration certificate for the international trademark directly.

5. Subclass principle in China: We can select proper standard descriptions to cover all the related subclasses and the goods of interest to tackle the special practice of subclass principle in Mainland China. However, for the international application, the designated goods shall keep consistency with the basic application.

6. Stable registration status: After the mark is registered, the national trademark enjoys stable registration. However, the status of the basic application may affect the final status of the international registration of the mark in China. Once the international trademark faces the Central attack principle and needs to convert into national applications, the CNIPA will re-examine the application and conduct substantial examination according to the current practice.