Executive Summary

Since 2025, the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) has significantly raised the evidentiary threshold for filing three-year non-use cancellation actions. It sends a clear message: three-year non-use cancellations are now subject to heightened scrutiny, and non-use cancellation must be supported by solid, verifiable, and multi-source evidence. Trademark owners should adopt proactive strategies for trademark use and evidence preservation, while petitioners must well prepare comprehensive and persuasive evidence demonstrating that the disputed mark was not used during the statutory period.

Details are summarized as follows:

1. Substantially Higher Evidentiary Threshold

Under the 2025 Guidelines and current CNIPA practice, petitioners should submit material preliminary investigation evidence at the filing stage, including but not limited to:

• Registrant’s business profile
  Business scope, operational status, and commercial activities
  
• Market investigation evidence, covering:
  Official websites and social media accounts (e.g. WeChat)
  E-commerce platforms
  Offline business premises
  

• Formal platform requirements
  Searches on at least three platforms
  Five consecutive full pages of complete search results per platform
  

Special scrutiny might be applied if the disputed trademark was maintained in a previous three-year non-use cancellation decision within the past three years.

Under current practice, if a challenged trademark has already survived a non-use cancellation action within the past three years, any subsequent application for non-use cancellation will be examined with heightened scrutiny. In such cases, the CNIPA might issue a notification of amendment requiring the applicant to submit additional probative and credible evidence demonstrating that the trademark has not been used, which may include the results of on-site investigations. Failing this, the new non-use cancellation application may be rejected, or the applicant may be advised to withdraw the application for non-use cancellation.

Overall, the evidentiary burden at the application initiation stage has increased significantly compared with prior practice.

2. Rationale: Preventing Procedural Abuse

Before these adjustments, petitioners for non-use cancellation were required to state specific non-use grounds and list preliminary evidence. In practice, the evidentiary threshold remained low, and minimal online search results were often sufficient to support filing.

By 2025, the CNIPA tightened the standards to address the increasing procedural abuse, mainly driven by:

• malicious filings, such as targeting trademarks that are clearly in use or using non-use cancellation as leverage; and,

• a surge in non-use cancellation cases following the reduced acceptance of consent letters since 2022, which made non-use cancellation the most effective way to clear prior marks.

These changes are grounded in the Guidelines for the Trial of Three-Year Non-Use Trademark Cancellation issued on May 26, 2025, and have been further implemented in examination practice.

These adjustments are not intended to discourage legitimate anonymous filings for three-year non-use cancellations per se. Under current practice, anonymous filings for non-use cancellation remain feasible. Rather, its purpose is to curb abusive reliance on the non-use cancellation mechanism, prevent procedural misuse, and enhance protection for trademarks that are genuinely used in commerce. As long as the challenged trademark is indeed not in use, such filings for non-use cancellation should not be adversely affected by these adjustments.

3. Impact Assessment: A Double-Edged Sword

Positive Effects for Trademark Owners

• Effective deterrence of bad-faith and harassing cancellations
• Reduced defensive burden for legitimately used trademarks

Challenges for Applicants for Filing Cancellation

• Evidence requirements are stricter​​: Registrant business investigations, multi-platform searches, and, in some cases, on-site investigations are now mandatory.

4. Practical Guidance

For Trademark Owners: Active Use + Reserving Evidence

Trademark owners should ensure the active commercial use of those trademarks that have been registered for three years or more, in order to mitigate the risk of non-use cancellation challenges.

Robust and well-documented evidence of trademark use includes but not limited to:

• Sales contracts, VAT invoices, and advertising materials;

• Product packaging, exhibition or trade fair records, and other promotional materials, all of which should clearly and consistently display the trademark.

It should be noted that the trademark authority no longer recognize “symbolic use”, such as internal documents or other forms of use that lack genuine commercial impact.

In addition, for trademarks that have been registered for three years or more but have not yet been commercially launched in China, trademark owners may consider establishing China-facing social media accounts to promote such trademarks. Per our local practice, use of trademarks on social media platforms may qualify as valid trademark use, as such use may be considered as a form of “advertising” where it reflects bona fide commercial promotion. Currently, the most widely used social media platforms in China include Sina Weibo, Xiaohongshu, and WeChat.

For Petitioners in Non-Use Cancellations

• Engage experienced counsel to conduct thorough and compliant investigations
• Clearly submit solid use evidence to make sure the application for non-use cancellation can be accepted by the CNIPA
• Review the trademark’s cancellation history before filing
• File a Review with the appeal board of the CNIPA if the cancellation action is not supported by the CNIPA, instead of simply refiling, because (i) filing a new cancellation in the coming three years may be unaccepted by the CNIPA, and (ii) Review proceedings allow for more thorough examination and may provide a better chance of success.