Trademark in China

Though China is a party to international agreements to protect intellectual property (including WIPO, Bern Convention, Paris Convention, among others), a company must register its patents and trademarks with the appropriate Chinese agencies and authorities for those rights to be enforceable in China. Copyrights do not need to be registered but registration may be helpful in enforcement actions. I recommend you access the following Web page for more information about this topic:

Your trademark does NOT extend to China. For you to have a trademark in China, you must register your trademark in China. There is an exception for well known trademarks, but unless you are Coca-Cola, forget about that.

The most important thing you have to know about trademarks in China is that it is a first to file country. This means that if you are using a trade name in China (or elsewhere) someone can register that same tradename and if they do so before you, they get the trademark. For more on this, I suggest you check out the article below, setting forth the basics of China's trademark laws.

I agree with what the previous two respondents said. But I wonder if you (or another reader) might be in the following situation: A product is made in China and then imported into the U.S. bearing a trademark you have registered in the U.S.

In that situation, your U.S. trademark registration could be used in either of two ways. One is that you could file a copy of the trademark registration with what used to be called the Customs Bureau and is now part of Homeland Security. If a shipment comes in and the government worker looking at the bill of lading happens to notice your trademark on it, they could stop it at the border. The second is that when the product is sold in the U.S., you could file a trademark infringement suit against the seller.