How to find a China trademark agency

The trademark market is a mixed bag. It’s easy to run into unscrupulous trademark agencies that charge exorbitant fees, ultimately harming both themselves and their clients. In contrast, legitimate trademark agencies follow a standardized process, saving you both money and worry.

So how do you find a legitimate China trademark agency?

1. Check for registration.

Generally, legitimate trademark agencies must register with the China Trademark Office. You can verify a company’s registration on the Trademark Office website (CNIPA) under the trademark agency section. This is an important step in verifying the legitimacy of a trademark agency and the first step in identifying fraudulent agencies!

Take our company as an example. Our English name is Wuhan Chuchuangyuan Trademark Agency Co., Ltd., and our Chinese name is 武汉楚创源商标代理有限公司.

First, visit the official list of registered and verified agencies on the Trademark Office of CNIPA website:

Copy and paste our company’s Chinese name or “楚创源” into the “代理机构名称” (Agency Name) field, then click the “查询” (Search) button on the far right. The search results for our company will appear below.

Clicking on the company name will redirect you to the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System website. Similarly, copy and paste our Chinese name “武汉楚创源商标代理有限公司” and click the “查询” (Search) button on the right.

Once the results page appears, click our company’s Chinese name listed below to view our detailed information.

Alternatively, there is another method to look up global trademark agencies. Visit: ip-pilot.com

Simply enter either the Chinese or English company name to perform the search.

https://app.ip-pilot.com/law-firms/wuhan-chuchuangyuan-trademark-agency-co-ltd-cn/overview?date_from=1980&date_to=2026&date_type=M&family_type=T%2CP&locale=en-US

2. Examine their words.

Pay attention to their promotional claims. Some agencies lure clients with promises of “free” service, “100% registration success,” or “obtaining a registration certificate in just a few months.” These are all gimmicks. Here’s why:

(1) Some agencies use “free” or “low price” as bait. While the initial service might be free or cheap, subsequent fees can be astronomical. Free trademark registration? Unreliable!

(2) After an individual or agency submits trademark application documents, the Trademark Office manually enters them into a computer database. This manual entry takes time, creating a “blind period.” During this time, no one can search for the information of the trademark application being entered. This means any trademark application might conflict with a prior application within the blind period, potentially leading to registration failure. The blind period risk is objective and unavoidable, so agencies claiming 100% registration success are definitely unreliable!

(3) China trademark registration involves several stages: formality examination, substantive examination, preliminary examination announcement, and registration announcement. The substantive examination alone takes 7 months, not to mention the preliminary examination announcement and registration announcement periods. Claims of obtaining a registration certificate within a few months are undoubtedly false and unreliable!

Therefore, when looking for an agency, consider visiting their office for an on-site inspection. This can help expose unreliable trademark agencies.