In accordance with Article 2 (2) of the Chinese Trademark Law, anyone can file a cancellation with the basic reason and evidence against a Chinese registered trademark based on three consecutive years’ non-use in Mainland China. Once receiving the cancellation notification, it is obligatory for the owner of the registered trademark to file the response to submit the valid use evidence to the Trademark Office within two months. As known, the Chinese Trademark Office is famous for its strict examination standard on similarity, therefore, facing the trademark refusal notification concerning similarity between the subject trademark and the cite trademark, the applicant of the former mark intends to choose to file a non-use cancellation against the cited mark as a strategy for the subject mark to be registered. There exists even an example that a trademark has experienced hundreds of times of cancellations.

These years, some local trademark agencies suggest the trademark should be re-registered every three years in case to be cancelled. However, re-registration of trademark is suspicious of violating the Trademark Law with respect to collection of trademarks without commercial use purpose, thus, the re-registered trademark takes risk to be refused due to the said violation.

In 2023, the Chinese Trademark Law will be amended for the fifth time, thus, recently, the trademark attorneys and the jurists have the chances to discuss the abovesaid cancellation issue again. Shall the amendment adapt to the principle of obligatory submission of use evidence in a fixed term the same as in USA and Philippines? Can we expect any eclectic regulation to be adapted to balance the exclusiveness and stability of the trademark right in China? LILLI & LOTUS will keep updating of the progress of the amendment of the Chinese Trademark Law.