The situation
A Danish children's products brand preparing its China e-commerce launch discovered that its word mark and logo were already registered in classes 28 and 35 — by a company sharing an address and legal representative with its former Guangzhou distributor. The squatter offered to "transfer" the marks for RMB 800,000 and had already filed takedown complaints against the brand's cross-border store listings. Without its own registrations, the client could not stock domestic platforms, and its goods were exposed to seizure at customs on the squatter's recordal.
What we did
- Built the bad-faith record. China's Trademark Law gives strong tools against squatters connected to a prior business relationship. We assembled the distribution agreement, order history, email correspondence and trade-show photos proving the squatter knew the brand before filing.
- Invalidation actions. We filed invalidation requests with CNIPA against both registrations, grounded on the agent/representative and prior-relationship provisions and bad-faith filing without intent to use, supported by evidence that the same registrant held marks copying two other foreign brands.
- Defensive refiling. In parallel we filed the client's own applications across the correct classes and subclasses — including a Chinese-character version of the brand the squatter had not thought of — so registration rights would be queued the moment the squatted marks fell.
- Platform containment. We rebutted the takedown complaints with the pending invalidations, keeping the client's cross-border listings live during the proceedings.
The result
CNIPA invalidated both registrations, finding bad faith based on the prior relationship and the registrant's filing pattern. Eleven months after first instruction, the client's own applications proceeded to registration; the Chinese-name mark registered without opposition. The client paid the squatter nothing. We completed customs recordal of the new registrations and set up a watch service that has since caught — and stopped at opposition stage — two copycat filings. The China launch proceeded a quarter later than planned, but with the brand fully owned.
Results depend on the specific facts of each matter; past outcomes do not guarantee similar results.