How to choose a Chinese brand name nobody owns yet

Chinese buyers name a foreign brand by sound or meaning whether its owner picks one or not, and China registers a mark to whoever files first. Filing a Chinese name costs from RMB 270 a class in official fees. Undoing someone else’s filing is slow: Michael Jordan spent over four years defeating the 乔丹 marks, and lost on QIAODAN.

You are about to sell in China, and your brand is a Latin-character word most buyers there will not say aloud. Within weeks of launch they will call it something: a sound-alike in characters, a translation, or a nickname picked up from a livestream. If you have not chosen that name and filed it, someone else can. A filing costs RMB 270 a class online.^⁠[1] Undoing someone else’s filing takes years: Jordan’s challenge to 乔丹 ran from October 2012 to December 2016, and he lost on the pinyin.^⁠[2,3]

Should our Chinese name follow the sound or the meaning?

Either can work, and each fails in its own way at CNIPA, China’s trademark office. The table sets the four usual routes against the grounds on which a name is refused or later lost.

Route	What it is	Where it runs into trouble
Transliteration(音译)	Characters chosen for their sound, close to the original name	Many character sets give the same sound, so an earlier mark that sounds alike in the same goods can block yours. Characters chosen only for sound can still carry a meaning nobody checked
Translation(意译)	Characters that say what the name means	A translation that only describes the goods, their quality, ingredients or function cannot be registered without proof that use has made it distinctive (Article 11). A translation of someone else’s registered foreign-language mark can be refused as similar
Sound and meaning together	Characters that echo the sound and carry a flattering meaning	The same two searches as above, both of which have to come back clear
A coined name	Characters with no fixed link to the original	The cleanest to register. Buyers may not connect it to your Latin mark unless you use the two together

Three bars apply whatever the route. A county-level or higher Chinese place name, or a foreign place name the public knows, cannot be a mark unless it has another meaning.^⁠[4] Nor can a sign that misleads buyers about quality or origin, or one with an “unhealthy influence” (不良影响), a ground that catches characters with an unfortunate reading. Read every candidate aloud in Mandarin and in Cantonese, and have a native speaker read the characters one by one as well as together.

How does someone else end up owning our Chinese name?

By filing it first. Where two people apply for the same or a similar mark on the same or similar goods, CNIPA approves the earlier application, and use decides only a same-day tie (Article 31).^⁠[4] Even then each applicant gets 30 days to prove earlier use, and where neither has used the mark, or both began the same day, they negotiate or CNIPA has them draw lots.^⁠[6] A registration protects the sign as registered and the goods it lists and nothing else, so your Latin-character registration does not cover the characters. The first-to-file page sets out why the Chinese name is a mark of its own.

The name a squatter files is usually the one your buyers already type. It shows up in platform listings, in media reports and in the transliteration a reseller used first. The longer the market uses a name you have not filed, the more it is worth to whoever files it.

What does the law protect if someone files it first?

Less than most owners expect. A Chinese name you never filed can still be defended on one of three grounds, and each needs evidence from inside China dated before the other side filed.

Your position	What protects it	The limit
The name is a person’s, a founder or designer whose Chinese translated name the public knows	A translated name (译名) is protected as a name right where it is known, the public uses it to mean that person, and the link is stable (Provisions, Article 20)	All three must be proved. The pinyin of the name may not count
The name is your company’s, or its customary transliteration	A trade name with some market reputation, or a short form of the company name that has reputation and a stable link to the company, is a prior interest against a confusing mark (Article 21). The Beijing High Court adds a foreign company’s customary transliteration, where it was used commercially in China before the other filing and became known there (16.17)	Use and reputation in China, not abroad
You used the Chinese name as a brand but never filed it	A filing made by unfair means to pre-empt a mark already used with some influence is refused (Trademark Law, Article 32). Bad faith is presumed where the filer knew or should have known of the mark (Provisions, Article 23)	Only on the same or similar goods. A squatter filing in an unrelated class is not stopped by this ground

The clock matters as much as the ground. Anyone with a prior right can oppose within three months of the other mark’s publication. After registration the same grounds must be raised within five years, unless the mark is well known and the filing was in bad faith (Article 45).^⁠[4] The routes and time limits for recovering a mark are set out in the answer on first to file.

What did the Jordan case cost?

Over four years, and half the result. Qiaodan Sports, a Chinese sportswear company, filed 乔丹, the usual Chinese rendering of Jordan’s name, for sports goods in April 2007. Michael Jordan sought to cancel it in October 2012. The trademark board and two Beijing courts upheld the mark.^⁠[2]

In December 2016 the Supreme People’s Court ruled the other way on the three character marks. Their registration harmed his prior right in his name, so it set aside the board’s ruling and both judgments and ordered the board to decide again. Jordan won that case without being given the name: the outcome was a new ruling on Qiaodan Sports’ marks. On the seven pinyin QIAODAN marks he lost, because he had no name right in the pinyin.^⁠[2,3]

Three years later, in December 2019, the court published the case as Guiding Case 113. A foreign person’s Chinese translated name can be protected even if that person never used it.^⁠[8] For a brand, the lesson is narrower. A person’s name has a ground of its own. A product name relies on use and reputation in China, or on having been filed first.

How do we check that a Chinese name is free?

1. Shortlist three to five names, across at least two routes from the table above, so one refusal does not send you back to the start.
2. List the goods and services you will sell in China and find their similar groups (类似群). CNIPA divides each class into groups and examines similarity group by group, under the edition of its classification in force on the filing date.^⁠[9]
3. Search CNIPA’s register for each name in those groups: the exact characters, characters with the same sound, and the pinyin. CNIPA says its online search is not updated in real time and has no legal effect,^⁠[10] so a clear result means clear as of a few weeks ago.
4. Search by meaning as well as by sound. Where a Chinese mark meets a foreign-language one, the Beijing High Court weighs how well the public understands the foreign word and how far the two correspond in meaning and pronunciation (15.8).^⁠[5] A translation of a registered English mark can be the conflict.
5. Screen the survivors against the bars above: place names, descriptive words, misleading or unfortunate readings.

Say a Dutch cycling-apparel brand registers its Latin name in class 25 and starts selling on a Chinese platform in January 2026. Buyers settle on a two-character nickname. In June a stranger files that nickname in class 25 for clothing and class 18 for bags. CNIPA averages 4 months to examine,^⁠[11] so the mark could be published around October. The brand then has three months to oppose.

In class 25 it can argue pre-emption of a used mark, but only if it adopted the nickname on its own listings and can show months of sales and advertising in China under it. The rule protects a prior user (Provisions, Article 23), so the evidence must show the brand itself using the name.^⁠[7] In class 18 that ground gives it nothing. Filing the nickname in both classes in January would have cost RMB 540 in official fees.^⁠[1]

When should we file, and what changes in 2027?

File before the name is first used in China, and file the Chinese name with the Latin-character mark. One application can cover several classes (Article 22).^⁠[4] Official fees, the agency requirement for foreign applicants and the overall timetable are on the first-to-file page.

The revised Trademark Law takes effect on 1 January 2027 and cuts the opposition window from three months to two (Article 36).^⁠[12] A Supreme People’s Court draft would keep three months for a mark published before that date, and CNIPA has published draft transition rules of its own, as the changeover page explains. For a Chinese name you are watching for, two months is little time to gather dated evidence of use in China. Trademark strategy and filing coordination starts with the clearance search on your shortlist.

Share on LinkedIn (opens in a new tab)

Want this done rather than explained? Trademark Strategy & Filing Coordination From US$180, Strategy in days; registration 9–12 months. See the service