Registration is not the finish line. Renewals, changes, assignments and licenses each have statutory deadlines and rules—and renewal is the least forgiving: miss the window and you start again from scratch.
| Matter | Statutory essentials | Authority |
|---|---|---|
| Renewal | Apply within the 12 months before expiry; if you miss that, there is a 6-month grace period (with an additional official fee); if no renewal is filed within the grace period, the registration is canceled. Each renewal runs for ten years from the day after the previous term expires. | Trademark Law, Article 40 |
| Change | A change of the registrant's name, address or other particulars must be recorded for all of its registered trademarks together—you cannot update just one. | Article 41 |
| Assignment | Assignor and assignee apply jointly; identical or similar marks held by the same owner for identical or similar goods must be assigned together; an assignment likely to cause confusion or have other adverse effects will not be approved. | Article 42 |
| License | A license to use a registered trademark should be recorded with the Trademark Office; an unrecorded license cannot be asserted against a good-faith third party—signing a license without recording it leaves you one layer of protection short. | Article 43 |
Article numbers refer to the current Trademark Law. When the revised law takes effect on 2027-01-01 the numbering will change, and this page will be updated at that time—see our 2027 Trademark Law topic page.
| Item | Official fee | Our service fee |
|---|---|---|
| Renewalper class | CNY 450Paper filing CNY 500 | Quoted case by case |
| Grace-period renewal surchargeper class, added when renewing in the grace period | CNY 225Paper filing CNY 250 | Quoted case by case |
| Recordal of change (name / address)per class; free when filed electronically | CNY 0Paper filing CNY 150 | Quoted case by case |
Official fees follow the schedule published by CNIPA. Renewing in the grace period costs an extra surcharge—that charge is itself the price signal that says “don't wait.”
Renewal is a natural checkpoint: is the address on record still current? CNIPA serves documents at the recorded address—if it is out of date, notices never reach you, and many deadlines run from the day a document is received. Recording a change electronically carries no official fee, so the easiest course is to do it alongside the renewal.
