China Targets Repeated Bad-Faith Trademark Registration under Anti-Unfair Competition Law

On April 20, 2026, the Supreme People’s Court of China (“SPC”) released a list of the top 10 intellectual property law cases of 2025. The cases cover patent (invention and design), trademark, copyright and unfair competition. One selected case involved applying the Anti-Unfair Competition Law to regulate continuous, repeated bad-faith trademark registrations. The SPC confirmed that persistently and repeatedly registering trademarks in bad faith constitutes unfair competition and knowingly accepting a commission to provide agency services for such bad-faith trademark registrations constitutes contributory infringement.

Background

Blue Girl Beer (Guangzhou) Co., Ltd. (Blue Girl Company) obtained trademark registration for “蓝妹” and “蓝妹金装” series marks in relation to the beers and related goods from 2001, which have acquired a certain level of reputation through sustained publicity and promotion.

Guangdong Jinhua Kani Trading Co., Ltd (Jinhua company), a competitor in the beer industry, successively applied for 19 imitative marks (such as “蓝味啤酒”, “蓝魅啤酒”, “正韩蓝妹”, “蓝味金罐” etc.) of Blue Girl Company’s aforementioned prior registered marks during the period from July 2017 to June 2022, among which 15 marks were filed through the agency, Guangzhou Gucheng Intellectual Property Agency Co., Ltd (Gucheng Agency), on behalf of Jinhua company.

The CNIPA and the courts have held that the aforementioned marks filed by Jinhua Company were similar to Blue Girl Company’s “蓝妹” series marks and covered identical or similar goods. The court’s prior judgments have also affirmed that Jinhua Company’s trademark registration applications for “一起嗨啤”, “蓝魅啤酒”, “蓝味啤酒”, “百英”, “哈冰”, etc. clearly showed intent to copy and plagiarise others’ famous trademarks, in violation of the principle of good faith, and disrupted trademark registration, use, and administration, thereby constituting “obtaining registration by other improper means” as prescribed under the Trademark Law. Therefore, the said 19 trademarks have all been refused, disapproved or invalidated.

In view of the above, Blue Girl Company alleged that Jinhua company’s applications to register trademarks that are identical or similar to its prior registered marks, and Gucheng Agency’s provision of agency services to Jinhua company constituted unfair competition, and therefore instituted legal proceedings before the Guangzhou Yuexiu District People’s Court, requesting the court to order Jinhua Company and Gucheng Agency to cease their unfair competition acts immediately, that Jinhua Company to compensate Blue Girl Company for economic losses and pay reasonable expenses totaling RMB1,000,000 (USD149,014) and Gucheng Agency to bear joint and several liability for RMB 250,000 (USD27,250).

Guangzhou Yuexiu District People’s Court decision

The court sided with Blue Girl Company and held that:

Jinhua Company, as an operator in the same industry, knowingly and repeatedly applied to register marks similar to Blue Girl Company’s “蓝妹” series registered marks, which clearly exceeded the needs of normal production and operation. This demonstrated an intent to free-ride on Blue Girl Company’s goodwill and seek improper gains, constituting bad-faith trademark registration. Additionally, licensing two of those trademarks to others for use amounted to hoarding trademarks for profit, constituting unfair competition.

As a professional trademark agency, Gucheng Agency continued to provide trademark agency services to Jinhua Company even after the court had made a negative evaluation of Jinhua Company’s registration activities. Gucheng Agency’s acts constituted contributory infringement and shall bear joint and several liability with Jinhua Company.

Accordingly, the court ordered Jinhua Company to pay RMB 500,000 (around USD 74,560) in damages to Blue Girl Company. It held Gucheng Agency jointly and severally liable for compensation up to RMB 100,000 (around USD 14,911).

Guangzhou IP Court decision

Gucheng Agency appealed to the Guangzhou IP Court, asking the court to set aside the part of the first-instance judgment that requires it to bear joint and several compensation liability, substitute a ruling that it shall not assume such liability, and order Blue Girl Company to bear all litigation costs incurred in this case.

After trial and investigation, the court held that the key issues in the second instance are:

1. Whether the acts of Gucheng Agency involved in this case constitute contributory infringement.
   
   In this case, Blue Girl Company is domiciled in Guangzhou, and its “蓝妹” series registered trademarks have attained a certain degree of reputation. Gucheng Agency, as a professional trademark agency also located in Guangzhou, should have been aware of the reputation of the “蓝妹” series registered trademarks—the trademark “蓝魅啤酒” under App. No. 25406641, for which Gucheng Agency acted as the agent, was filed on July 9, 2017 and rejected on April 18, 2018. Nevertheless, Gucheng Agency continued to file the trademarks at issue on behalf of Jinhua Company, and the aggregate of similar trademark applications it represented amounted to 15. It also represented Jinhua Company in trademark matters such as opposition and invalidation defence for the said similar marks at issue. Accordingly, the court of first instance’s determination that Gucheng Agency’s acts constituted contributory infringement and that it shall bear joint and several liability with Jinhua Company was appropriate and involved no error.
   
2. Whether the first-instance judgment appropriately determined Gucheng Agency’s legal responsibility.
   
   According to the relevant provisions of the Anti-unfair Competition Law, the amount of compensation for an operator who has suffered damage due to an act of unfair competition shall be determined based on the actual losses it sustained from the infringement; where the actual losses are difficult to calculate, the amount shall be determined based on the profits obtained by the infringer as a result of the infringement.
   
   In this case, the unfair competition acts committed by Jinhua Company and Gucheng Agency compelled Blue Girl Company to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests by means of filing trademark oppositions, initiating trademark invalidation proceedings, administrative litigation, civil litigation, and other measures. The evidence shows that Blue Girl Company incurred RMB255,600.4 (around USD38,115) in expenses for the foregoing reasonable enforcement of its rights. Considering that Jinhua Company and Gucheng Agency engaged in the unfair competition at issue over a prolonged period, filed a substantial number of trademarks in bad faith, and acted with evident subjective malice in the infringement, the court of first instance, in its discretion, held that Gucheng Agency shall bear joint and several liability for RMB100,000 (around USD14,911) of Jinhua Company’s compensation liability, which was not improper.
   
   The evidence on record shows that the accused’s acts at issue caused substantial losses to Blue Girl Company. Gucheng Agency’s contention that the compensation amount in the first-instance judgment is excessive lacks a basis, and the court declines to adopt it.

Ultimately, the court dismissed Gucheng Agency’s appeal and upheld the first-instance judgment.

Comment

This case is a typical example of applying the Anti-Unfair Competition Law to regulate/curb persistent and repeated bad-faith trademark registrations. In this ruling, the court negatively evaluated repeatedly and substantially applying for trademark registration after prior decisions/judgments recognised the acts as bad-faith trademark registration.

The court pursued liability against agencies participating in the trademark registration chain, extending regulatory focus on bad-faith trademark registrations/filings from applicants/registrants to the agencies, serving the chain of benefits involved in the practice and thereby helping curb bad-faith trademark registration and uphold a market order of fair competition.

When confronted with persistent and repeated bad-faith filing/registrations, the client may take the following actions:

Administrative Remedies: Monitor and timely initiate opposition or invalidation proceedings concerning marks subject to bad-faith squatting and utilise the new legal provisions once taken into force to prevent the registration of the bad-faith filings at the source.

Judicial Remedies: For acts constituting unfair competition, institute proceedings under the Anti-Unfair Competition Law to demand cessation of infringement, compensation for damages, with joint and several liability extended to agencies in the bad-faith filing chain.

Routine Preventive Measures: Systematically compiles the evidence of use of their registered marks by retaining business sales documents (such as sales contracts, purchase orders, sales invoices, bank receipts, delivery notes, bills of lading, packing lists, customs clearance documents issued by the Chinese local customs etc.), online sale records (such as screenshots of online stores or platforms associated with the registered trademarks) and promotional materials (such as exhibition materials, advertising materials, expenditure documents thereof etc.) to build a complete chain of evidence, serving both to underpin any future enforcement actions (including damages claims) where necessary or to defend against non-use cancellation actions initiated by third parties (if any).