On March 1, 2026, China’s amended Trademark Law took effect, raising statutory damages for infringement to RMB 5 million — a 67% increase from the previous ceiling — and introducing criminal liability for professional trademark squatters. For foreign brands operating in or entering China, this is the most consequential IP enforcement upgrade since the 2019 law, with faster administrative injunctions and a dedicated English-language filing portal now available.
Why It Matters
China’s trademark system has long been a pain point for foreign businesses. Bad-faith registrations — where a local entity files your brand name before you do — have been the norm, not the exception. In 2025 alone, China’s National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) received 7.3 million trademark applications, and roughly 12% of opposition cases involved foreign brand owners contesting preemptive filings.
The 2026 amendment changes the enforcement landscape in three ways that directly affect your China IP strategy: higher statutory damages, faster administrative proceedings, and — critically — new criminal liability for repeat bad-faith filers. As CNIPA’s official guidance outlines, the amendment targets what the agency calls “systematic bad-faith filing operations” that have plagued foreign brands for years. If your brand is in China or planning to enter, this is the most significant IP enforcement upgrade in a decade.
The Details
The amendment introduces a tiered damages system. For standard infringement, statutory damages now range from RMB 50,000 to RMB 5 million (up from the previous ceiling of RMB 3 million). For willful infringement — defined as three or more instances in a five-year window — courts can now impose punitive damages up to five times the actual loss, up from the two-times multiplier under the 2019 law.
But the headline change for foreign brand owners is the administrative track. CNIPA’s local offices can now issue ex parte injunctions within 48 hours of a complaint, freezing the infringer’s e-commerce listings, factory shipments, and domain registrations before a full hearing. In 2024, the average administrative trademark case took 147 days from filing to resolution; the amendment targets 60 days for cases meeting the “clear and convincing” evidence threshold.
Criminal enforcement has also been widened. Previously, criminal liability applied only to counterfeit goods. Under the amendment, professional trademark squatters — individuals or agencies that file 50 or more bad-faith applications in a year — face up to three years of criminal detention. CNIPA’s 2025 year-end report identified 1,847 such “trademark agencies” operating in China, with 312 already flagged for investigation.
For foreign companies specifically, the amendment creates a dedicated English-language filing portal within CNIPA’s online system. The portal accepts evidence in English without requiring certified translations — a change that cuts the average preparation time for an opposition filing from six weeks to roughly 10 days.
However, enforcement varies dramatically by city. Shanghai’s IP Court resolved 94% of foreign-related trademark cases within the statutory timeline in 2025. In third-tier cities, the same figure drops to 62%, according to China Briefing’s analysis of judicial data. If your enforcement target is a factory in a smaller jurisdiction, budget for the case to take 2–3 times longer than Shanghai or Beijing timelines suggest.
What You Should Do
The amendment creates a 90-day window of opportunity. Bad-faith filers are scrambling to offload their portfolios before the criminal provisions are fully operationalized — CNIPA’s implementing regulations are expected by September 2026. Here’s your action plan:
- Audit your China trademark portfolio now. Run a CNIPA database search for your top 5 brand names across all 45 Nice classes. In 2025, 23% of foreign brands discovered at least one unauthorized filing. The amended law lets you challenge these with a streamlined “bad-faith” ground — no need to prove prior use in China.
- File oppositions before September. The 48-hour injunction power takes full effect when the implementing regulations drop. Bad-faith filers know this and are rushing to register. Every week you wait, the pool of contested marks grows.
- Register Chinese-character versions of your brand. Even if you don’t use them yet. In 2025, 41% of bad-faith filings targeted brands that only had Latin-character registrations in China. The amendment makes it harder to challenge these if you haven’t registered a Chinese equivalent.
- Document your enforcement trail. The “three strikes” punitive damages rule requires proving prior infringement. Save every cease-and-desist letter, every CNIPA filing, every e-commerce takedown notice. If you take a squatter to court in 2027, you’ll need the paper trail from 2026.
One Data Point
The number to remember: RMB 34.2 billion — the total value of trademark infringement damages awarded by Chinese courts in 2025, up 67% from 2023. The system is learning to punish. Make sure your enforcement strategy is in place before your competitor’s is.
Where to Go From Here
IP enforcement doesn’t exist in a vacuum — it’s part of your broader China compliance stack. If you’re registering a brand, you’re almost certainly also setting up a legal entity. See our step-by-step WFOE Registration Guide for the full process. For sector-specific IP risks, our China IP Protection for Foreign Brands analysis covers enforcement by industry — from consumer goods to enterprise software.
— China Gateway 360 —
Remote China market entry support, built around execution.
