CHANG TSI
Insights
China’s effective trademark registrations have now exceeded 47.62 million, yet more than half of them remain unused, leading to a surge in “zombie trademarks” that occupy valuable commercial resources. The increasing scarcity of trademark resources, coupled with a reduced acceptance of coexistence agreements, has driven a sharp rise in non-use cancellation applications (approximately 180,000 in 2023, with projections exceeding 200,000 in 2024). These trends have led to substantial changes in China’s trademark cancellation practice. On one hand, China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) has raised the evidentiary requirements for registrants to clear out zombie trademarks; on the other hand, it has tightened the evidentiary burden on cancellation applicants to curb procedural abuse and cancellation filings with bad faith.
Previously, during the cancellation phase, CNIPA allowed registrants to maintain a trademark’s registration on all designated goods by providing evidence of use for a single designated goods. During the review stage, the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board (TRAB) assessed trademark use evidence based on subclass principle, and those subclasses where no evidence of use on the designated goods is submitted would be cancelled. Now, even at the initial cancellation stage, CNIPA also adopts the subclass principle to review the evidence of use, meaning that providing evidence for just one goods or one subclass is no longer sufficient to maintain the registration on all designated goods. This shift significantly increases the possibility that a trademark being cancelled under the cancellation procedure. Statistics indicate that in non-use cancellation cases, over 90% of trademarks are either fully or partially cancelled.
The high rate of cancellation, combined with CNIPA’s stricter stance on coexistence agreements, has resulted in an exponential increase in non-use cancellation cases. Among the surge in filings, some applicants have been found to abuse the cancellation system by submitting large volumes of baseless applications to disrupt trademark management or even seek financial gain. To address this, CNIPA has tightened formal examination requirements for non-use cancellation applications, imposing stricter standards for applicants’ initial evidence submissions. While applicants are now required to submit a broader range of concrete evidence proving that a trademark has not been used, this change primarily shifts the evidentiary burden earlier in the process rather than fully transferring the responsibility.
Historically, China’s non-use cancellation procedures accepted relatively minimal evidence, allowing applicants to initiate a cancellation application based on basic documentation. However, according to recent Notifications of Non-use Cancellation Amendments issued by CNIPA, applicants shall provide preliminary evidence demonstrating that the trademark has not been used continuously for three years. The standards for non-use evidence have become increasingly stringent, marking CNIPA’s shift from accepting “token evidence” to requiring “systematic proof.”
With the rapid increase in cancellation cases, CNIPA has identified instances where applicants exploit procedural loopholes by filing large volumes of applications without non-substantive basis. To address this issue, CNIPA has begun issuing more Notifications of Non-use Cancellation Amendments requiring applicants to provide supplementary evidence. A recent CNIPA notice explicitly outlined three key types of preliminary investigation evidence required when filing a cancellation application:
1 Registrant Information: Applicants need to provide detailed information about the trademark registrant, including business scope, operational status, and registration specifics. This contextualizes the trademark and helps ascertain whether its non-use stems from genuine business inactivity.
2 Operational Evidence for Active Registrants: For registrants still engaged in business, applicants are required to submit evidence demonstrating that the trademark is not in active use. This might include supporting documents on sales, service provision, and physical or office locations.
3 Online and Industry-Specific Evidence: Given the digital transformation of commerce, CNIPA now requires comprehensive online searches across mainstream search engines, e-commerce platforms, and social media channels, as well as industry-specific websites. Applicants need to provide full-page, at least five consecutive pages from the first page on no fewer than three platforms.
Key Takeaways for Cancellation Applicants: Although these evidentiary requirements are still applied on a case-by-case basis, CNIPA is clearly transitioning from accepting token evidence to requiring systematic and structured proof. The standardized evidence format and comprehensive chain of proof aim to eliminate cancellation applications with bad faith while improving procedural fairness and integrity in China’s trademark system.
While these reforms help curb cancellation filings with bad faith, they have also increased the burden on applicants with good faith, as applicants now have to invest more time and financial resources to meet stricter evidentiary requirements. In essence, businesses with large trademark portfolios face a lower risk of malicious cancellations, but both cancellation applicants and registrants are experiencing higher costs in maintaining or challenging trademarks.
