Designating China under Madrid (马德里国际注册), and what it leaves to you

A Madrid international registration that designates China is protected there if CNIPA sends no refusal within 12 or 18 months of WIPO’s notification. If it does refuse, you have 15 days from receipt to seek review, through a Chinese trademark agency. The certificate you hold is WIPO’s; Chinese customs asks for one issued in China.

You own your trademark at home and ticked China on your international application. WIPO has sent a certificate listing China among the designated countries, and it is tempting to file the brand as done. For the next year or so the Chinese protection is not settled, and the one deadline that can lose it is two weeks long.

China gives its trademark office, CNIPA (the China National Intellectual Property Administration), 12 or 18 months to refuse a designation. You get 15 days to answer a refusal, through a Chinese trademark agency you need to have chosen already.^⁠[1,2] Most of what follows is about the gap between those two numbers, and about the things a WIPO certificate cannot do inside China.

When is our Madrid trademark actually protected in China?

When the refusal period ends with no refusal from CNIPA. CNIPA examines a designation of China under the same Trademark Law and Regulations as a Chinese application. If it sends no refusal or partial refusal within the period, protection is treated as granted (Regulations Article 42).^⁠[3] Nothing arrives to mark the day, so you have to work the date out.

The period depends on your home office, not on China. CNIPA counts it from the date of WIPO’s notification. It is 12 months where the office of origin is party to both the Madrid Agreement and the Protocol, and 18 months where it is party to the Protocol alone.^⁠[1] The Protocol itself sets one year and lets a country declare 18 months instead.^⁠[4]

Office of origin	Party to	CNIPA’s refusal period
Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium	Agreement and Protocol	12 months from WIPO’s notification
United States, United Kingdom, European Union, Australia, Japan, Republic of Korea, Singapore, New Zealand, Canada	Protocol only	18 months from WIPO’s notification

Say a British cosmetics brand designates China and WIPO notifies CNIPA on 15 March 2026. CNIPA has until 15 September 2027 to refuse. An Italian brand notified the same day is protected from 15 March 2027, six months earlier, for the same goods.

China can also be added after the international registration, by a subsequent designation. Its period then runs from WIPO’s notification of that designation, not from the original registration.^⁠[4]

CNIPA refused our designation. How long do we have?

15 days from receiving the refusal to ask CNIPA to review it, which is the same window a Chinese applicant has (Trademark Law Article 34).^⁠[2] The Regulations switch off two of CNIPA’s own time limits for international registrations, the 9 months for examining an application and the 12 months for deciding an opposition, but not this one.^⁠[3] The revised law in force from 1 January 2027 keeps the 15 days.^⁠[6]

A foreign company with no place of business in China cannot file the review itself. It must act through a trademark agency established in China, under the law now and under the revised law.^⁠[2,6] So the agency has to be chosen before the refusal arrives, not after. The official fee for the review is RMB 675 online, and the agency’s fee is on top.^⁠[7] CNIPA then has 9 months to decide the review, extendable by 3.^⁠[2]

A refusal can be partial, cutting some goods and letting the rest through. The goods it cuts are not protected in China unless a review restores them.^⁠[3]

Can someone oppose our Madrid designation in China?

Yes. WIPO’s Gazette publishes the designation, and CNIPA issues no separate Chinese publication of it.^⁠[3] An opponent has three months from the first day of the month after the Gazette issue that carries your designation (Regulations Article 45). CNIPA passes the opposition on to WIPO as a refusal, and you have 30 days from receiving WIPO’s notice to answer, again through a Chinese agency.^⁠[3]

Three-dimensional marks, colour combinations, sound marks, collective marks and certification marks carry one more deadline. The supporting materials go to CNIPA through a Chinese agency within three months of the international registration, or the designation is refused.^⁠[3]

Which Chinese deadlines run from the end of the refusal period?

Several, which is why the date in the first section matters after protection too.

What	When it can happen
Someone applies to cancel your mark for three years’ non-use撤三	Only once 3 years have passed from the end of the refusal period
Someone with an earlier right applies to invalidate your mark	Within 5 years from the end of the refusal period. A well-known mark’s owner acting against a bad-faith registration has no time limit
You may apply to invalidate a squatter’s Madrid mark on relative grounds	The same 5 years, counted from the end of that mark’s refusal period
Renewal	Through WIPO, not CNIPA. The term runs from the international registration date, or from the subsequent designation if China was added later, with a 6-month grace period

For the British brand above, the refusal period ends on 15 September 2027. Nobody can apply to cancel its Chinese protection for non-use before 15 September 2030. A competitor with an earlier right has until 15 September 2032 to seek invalidation.

Is the WIPO certificate enough for Chinese customs?

No. Recording an international registration with China’s customs (知识产权海关保护备案) requires a certificate issued in China. The rule asks for a certificate concerning the registration from the Chinese trademark authority (GACC Measures Article 7).^⁠[8] A right holder outside China applies through an office in China or a Chinese agent.^⁠[8]

CNIPA’s fee for issuing a trademark certificate is RMB 45 online, or RMB 50 on paper.^⁠[7] Why customs recordal matters for a brand with no Chinese company is in the answer on first to file.

What does a Madrid designation of China not cover?

• Your Chinese name. An international registration protects the mark recorded in it.^⁠[4] A Chinese-character name the market gives your brand, or one you choose, is a different mark and needs its own filing. How to pick one that is free is in choosing a Chinese brand name.
• Goods you did not list in China’s terms. CNIPA examines the designation under Chinese rules, and Chinese examination works from similar groups inside each class.^⁠[3] How that differs from filing in China directly is in the answer on first to file.
• A fall at home in the first five years. For five years from the international registration, protection everywhere depends on the home application or registration. If that is refused, withdrawn or cancelled, the designation of China goes with it.^⁠[4] You can then file a national application in China within three months and keep the international registration date (transformation).^⁠[4]

Does Madrid cost less than filing in China directly?

At the official fee level, the two are close. WIPO’s individual fee for designating China was CHF 220 for one class and CHF 110 for each further class, on a page last updated on 23 August 2026.^⁠[9] A direct Chinese application costs RMB 270 online per class, covering up to 10 items.^⁠[7] A direct filing, though, needs a Chinese agency from the start, while a Madrid designation needs one only when something goes wrong.^⁠[2]

That is the real trade. Madrid defers the agency cost to the moment of a refusal or opposition, when the deadline is 15 or 30 days. Trademark strategy and filing coordination covers watching the refusal period, the certificate and the Chinese-name filing.

What changes for Madrid marks on 1 January 2027?

Less than for Chinese filings, so far. The revised Trademark Law leaves international registration to the treaties China has joined and to rules the State Council makes (Article 12).^⁠[6] Those rules are still the 2014 Regulations on 7 October 2026.

One gap is open. From 1 January 2027 opposition to a Chinese application must be filed within two months of publication, down from three.^⁠[6] The three-month window for opposing a Madrid designation sits in the Regulations (Article 45), not in the law, and nothing published yet says whether it will shorten too.^⁠[3] Which law decides a case running across the date is covered in which Trademark Law applies across 1 January 2027.

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Designating China, or filing there directly? Trademark Strategy & Filing Coordination We map your Madrid goods against the Chinese classes, read the register for conflicts, and plan any national filing that closes the gaps. From US$180, strategy in days; registration 9–12 months. See the service