Business Question 

When companies choose a trademark agency, price and turnaround time are often important factors — and reasonably so. But because the boundaries of responsibility between agencies have historically been unclear, companies have had little basis from the outside to judge how rigorously a given agency actually screens for risk, leaving price and speed as the most visible, sometimes the only visible, points of difference.

This installment examines the comprehensive overhaul of trademark agency oversight under the new Law, and what it actually changes. This change should not be read simply as “tighter regulation of the agency industry” — it is better understood as a redefinition of professional boundaries: the value of trademark agency services is expanding from the straightforward work of filing applications and processing paperwork, into a full-lifecycle service spanning filing, licensing, use, recordal, risk disclosure, and ongoing management.

  Legal Update 

The provisions most directly relevant to oversight of trademark agencies are the new Articles 65 through 68, which together comprehensively rebuild the regulatory framework for the agency industry. The core changes can be summarized in three points.

First, the duty of diligence and risk disclosure has been formally codified. Article 65 provides that trademark agencies and their practitioners shall adhere to the principle of good faith and perform their duties of diligence, and where a trademark a client applies to register may fall under a circumstance in which registration is prohibited under the Law, the agency shall clearly notify the client — elevating “proactive risk disclosure” from a matter of industry self-discipline into a formal statutory duty.

Second, an agency's and its practitioners' professional records now carry a public, verifiable status for the first time. Article 65 also requires a trademark agency to file the relevant information of the agency and its practitioners with the trademark administration department under the State Council for the record; Article 66 further provides that a practitioner must handle trademark agency business as assigned by the agency, may not accept a mandate on its own, and may not work for more than one agency at the same time.

Third, an agency that knowingly accepts a mandate involving an unlawful filing now bears substantive liability. Article 67 provides that where an agency knows or has reason to know that a trademark a client applies to register falls under a prohibited circumstance, and nonetheless accepts the mandate, among other listed violations, the department responsible for trademark law enforcement shall order rectification within a prescribed time limit and impose a fine of RMB 10,000 to RMB 100,000, or RMB 100,000 to RMB 200,000 in serious cases, and the trademark administration department under the State Council may decide to stop accepting the agency's business; Article 68 sets out corresponding penalties for individual practitioners.

  Practical Analysis 

Taken together, these three points send a clear signal: the new Law is using the force of statute to spell out what counts as adequate agency service.

In the past, differences in service quality among agencies were often not readily visible at the filing stage — on the surface, submitting an application and obtaining a registration certificate looked much the same regardless of which agency handled it. But once duties such as risk disclosure, conflict-of-interest avoidance, practitioner recordal, and screening for bad-faith filings are codified, these previously invisible differences become observable and traceable: whether an agency genuinely fulfills its disclosure duty, whether its practitioners are properly recorded, and whether it has ever been penalized or restricted for violations all become objectively verifiable indicators, rather than a matter of vague reputation.

This expansion of responsibility is not confined to the filing stage alone. Article 55's clarification of the legal effect of trademark licensing recordal — that an unrecorded license may not be asserted against a bona fide third party — illustrates the same point from another angle: trademark matters are shifting from one-time filing transactions toward ongoing, full-lifecycle management. In the past, a trademark license was often treated as an internal arrangement complete once the contract was signed; now that the new Law makes clear that an unrecorded license cannot be asserted against a bona fide third party, the continued status and recordal progress of a licensing relationship becomes something a professional team needs to track on an ongoing basis, rather than something to file away once the contract is signed. Read together, these two developments in agency oversight and licensing recordal point to the same trend: the professional value of trademark services is shifting from one-off procedural execution toward ongoing risk management.

  Practical Impact 

For brand owners, this revision does not diminish the value of agency services — quite the opposite. The kind of professional judgment in trademark matters that was previously difficult to quantify is becoming more important than ever.

Consider a concrete scenario: a company plans to register a new brand across several related classes at once. A purely procedural approach might see the agency simply file across every requested class as instructed. A team capable of genuine professional judgment, by contrast, would flag in advance that some of those classes may risk rejection for lacking a clear plan for use, that certain proposed marks may carry functionality or descriptiveness defects, and that any related licensing or authorization arrangements will need to be recorded in parallel. In the past, this kind of difference depended largely on the individual experience and conscientiousness of the handling staff, and was difficult for a client to perceive in advance when choosing a service provider. Now that the new Law codifies requirements such as risk disclosure and practitioner recordal, the value of this professional judgment itself, for the first time, has a basis on which it can be observed and verified.

  GreRoyalt Observation 

We believe the new Law does not diminish the role of trademark agencies — it makes the difference between procedural service and professional service more visible. That difference has always existed, but clients have rarely been able to perceive it directly when choosing a service provider. Now, Article 65's codification of the duty to clearly notify clients of risk effectively confirms, as a statutory floor, the standard that genuinely responsible practitioners in this field have always held themselves to — the professional value of trademark services is moving from one-time procedural execution toward ongoing risk management spanning filing, licensing, and use. This is also the thread that runs through how we understand this revision as a whole.

  Looking Ahead 

As requirements such as agency recordal, risk disclosure, and conflict-of-interest management take hold in practice, competition among trademark agency services is likely to be defined increasingly by risk judgment, process management, and ongoing service capability — rather than by price and speed alone.

In the next installment: “Statutory Damages Raised to RMB 5,000,000: What Actually Determines a High-Damages Case?” — examining the major recalibration of infringement determination and damages, and the practical impact of the higher statutory cap on enforcement strategy.

This article is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice for any specific matter. Please consult qualified counsel regarding your particular circumstances.