China Trademark Non-Use Cancellations: Clearing Dead Marks and Fighting Trademark Squatters
A China trademark search often turns up an older registration that blocks your mark even though nobody appears to be using it. That registration need not end your application. Once three years have passed from the registration announcement, a Chinese trademark can be cancelled if it has gone unused for three consecutive years without a valid reason. For companies blocked by stale registrations or trademark squatters, a non-use cancellation is often the cleanest way to remove that obstacle.
Why Non-Use Cancellations Matter in China
The United States makes trademark owners keep proving use. Owners generally must show use to obtain a registration and must then file declarations of continued use between the fifth and sixth years after registration, again between the ninth and tenth years, and every ten years after that. Unless the non-use is excused, an owner loses its registration for goods on which it has stopped using the mark.
China does not require owners to prove use to maintain or renew a registration. The revised Trademark Law, which takes effect January 1, 2027, also dropped an earlier proposal that would have required periodic statements of use. As a result, a Chinese registration can remain on the register long after its owner stopped using the mark, or even if the owner never used it. China's subclass system makes the problem worse by encouraging companies to register beyond the products they currently sell. See China Trademarks: Register in More Classes, Take Down More Counterfeit Goods. That is why trademark searches so often uncover registrations covering goods on which the mark is no longer used, or never was.
Through the end of 2026, it takes a third party to start a non-use cancellation. Beginning January 1, 2027, the revised law also authorizes CNIPA to cancel, on its own initiative, marks that have gone unused for three consecutive years without a valid reason. How often CNIPA will use that power is unclear, and a company already blocked by an unused registration has no reason to wait for CNIPA to act. See China Trademarks: When (and How) to Prove Use of a Mark in Commerce.
Research Before You File
Before filing a non-use cancellation, find out whether the mark is in use. Since May 2025, CNIPA has required cancellation applicants to submit preliminary evidence of non-use, and its guidance points to Internet searches, information on the registrant's business operations, company websites and WeChat accounts, e-commerce platforms, and market investigations. Our China trademark lawyers have long conducted the same investigation before filing. We search Baidu and other search engines, check the owner's corporate registration and business status, and review its website and social media accounts. We also search Alibaba, JD.com, Taobao, Tmall, and other platforms where the relevant goods would likely be sold, and we look for the products themselves, not just the owner's name.
If that search turns up credible evidence of genuine commercial use on the goods or services that matter to you, a non-use cancellation is the wrong tool for those goods. If it turns up nothing, cancellation becomes far more attractive. Once CNIPA accepts the case, the trademark owner must produce evidence of qualifying use during the relevant three-year period, and that evidence must show who used the mark, on which goods or services, when, and in China.
Cancel Only What You Need to Cancel
A non-use cancellation can target an entire registration or only some of the goods or services it covers. Use on one product can preserve the registration for that product and sufficiently similar goods, but unrelated goods for which the owner cannot show qualifying use remain vulnerable. Attack only what blocks you. If a registration covers ten products across several subclasses and only one subclass conflicts with what you plan to sell, target that subclass. Going after the rest adds cost without helping your application.
Coordinate the Cancellation With Your Own Trademark Application
A non-use cancellation does not stop CNIPA from examining your own application, and CNIPA can refuse that application based on the very registration you are trying to cancel. If the refusal review is decided against you before the cancellation succeeds, you are left with a court appeal or a new application with a later filing date. Since 2023, CNIPA has allowed refusal reviews to be suspended while the status of a cited trademark is being resolved, which can keep the refusal review from overtaking the cancellation proceeding.
If you are attacking the cited mark through a non-use cancellation, invalidation, opposition, or other proceeding, ask CNIPA to suspend the review until that proceeding ends. Suspension is not automatic. The proceeding against the cited mark must be capable of changing the outcome of the refusal review, so if another ground for refusal or another cited mark would block your application anyway, CNIPA can proceed. Make the request within the three-month period for supplemental materials after you file for refusal review, and identify the proceeding against the cited mark. Once that proceeding ends, submit the result promptly and ask CNIPA to resume.
Using Non-Use Cancellation Against Trademark Squatters
Non-use cancellation is especially useful against trademark squatters. Many squatters register marks in the hope that the legitimate brand owner will eventually pay for them, and a squatter that never uses its mark is exposed to the three-year rule. Careful squatters try to close that gap.
Some create evidence of use, and even limited genuine commercial activity can complicate a cancellation if it satisfies China's use requirements. Token use undertaken solely to preserve the registration does not qualify, but you should still investigate before filing rather than assume the squatter has done nothing. Others file a new application for the same mark before the existing registration becomes vulnerable, creating another obstacle even if the older registration is cancelled.
Filing your own application early, before the blocking registration becomes eligible for cancellation, gives you a filing date ahead of any later application by the squatter. Once the registration becomes eligible, file the non-use cancellation, and if CNIPA refuses your application while the cancellation is pending, seek refusal review and ask for suspension.
This takes time and carries risk. The squatter may prove use, and other applications or registrations can get in the way. A successful cancellation, though, removes the blocking registration without litigation and without paying a squatter an inflated price for a mark it should not control. A credible path to cancellation also strengthens your hand in any negotiation, because a squatter has less leverage over a brand owner who does not need to buy.
Non-Use Cancellation Versus a Bad-Faith Challenge
Chinese trademark law also offers direct remedies against bad-faith filings, including oppositions against pending applications and invalidation proceedings against registered marks. The revised Trademark Law also tightens the restrictions on applications filed without an intent to use that clearly exceed normal business needs.
But bad faith and non-use present different cases. A bad-faith challenge requires evidence of how and why the registrant obtained the mark. A non-use cancellation asks a simpler question: did the owner use the mark during the relevant three-year period?
If a blocking registration is more than three years old and appears unused, answer that question before you pay a squatter, abandon your application, or start a more complicated trademark fight. Sometimes the trademark blocking you is much weaker than it looks.
