The name your customers actually use is not the one you registered
A foreign brand entering China usually registers its Latin-script wordmark and considers the job done. It is not done.
Chinese consumers do not read your English name. They read, speak, search and type a Chinese name. Marketplaces, distributors and journalists will settle on one whether you choose it or not. And under Chinese trademark law, a registration for your Latin mark does not extend to the Chinese characters your customers use.
The register treats them as separate signs. There is no mechanism that connects them for you. If someone else registers the Chinese name first, they own the name your customers use — even though the English mark is yours.
What happens when you leave it to the market
If you do not choose a Chinese name, the market chooses one for you. Online sellers, bloggers and consumers improvise a nickname, and that organic name accumulates real recognition before you have any control over it.
Two outcomes follow, and both are bad.
The nickname may be unregistrable because it is descriptive or generic, or unflattering in a way you would never have picked. You are then stuck with a name you cannot own.
Or — the more common and more expensive outcome — a third party registers the name customers already associate with you, and you must buy it, challenge it, or launch under a weaker alternative.
The MUJI case is the clearest warning
MUJI, the Japanese lifestyle brand, spent 24 years litigating over its Chinese name 无印良品. In June 2025 the Supreme People's Court rejected its retrial application and upheld a third party's registration for the name on textile goods in Class 24. MUJI had failed to secure the Chinese name across all relevant classes in 2000.
The company had used the name. Consumers knew the name. None of that mattered, because someone else filed first.
The three routes to a Chinese name
There is no single correct way to render a foreign brand in Chinese, and the choice is partly a marketing decision. But the three routes carry different legal consequences, and that is the part brand owners miss.
Transliteration
You choose characters that approximate the sound of the original name. The connection to the global brand stays audible, which is why roughly the majority of foreign brands entering China take this route.
The advantage from a registration standpoint is distinctiveness. A phonetic combination usually carries no overall literal meaning, so it reads as an invented term and is unlikely to be rejected as descriptive. That makes it easier to register and easier to enforce.
The risk is that Chinese characters carry meaning as well as sound. A phonetic set chosen carelessly can read as awkward, comical or unflattering, and the damage is not immediately visible to a non-Chinese speaker.
Free translation
You choose a name for its meaning rather than its sound. This produces a name that communicates what the brand stands for — but it severs the audible link to the original, and translated names are more likely to collide with descriptive or generic terms, which are refused.
The famous example is Coca-Cola's 可口可乐, which is a rare instance of both approaches succeeding at once: it echoes the sound and means, roughly, "delicious and enjoyable." Carrefour's 家乐福 does the same, implying a happy family shopping trip. These are the exceptions, not the template.
Coined terms
You craft a new combination of characters that tracks neither sound nor literal meaning, but is designed to feel positive, memorable and ownable.
This is often the strongest position for registration, precisely because an invented term is inherently distinctive. The trade-off is that it abandons both the sound and the meaning of the original, so it works best for a brand willing to build a Chinese identity from scratch.
Two tests any candidate name must pass
Native-speaker reading, across regions. Characters must be checked for unintended readings in Mandarin and in major regional pronunciations, particularly Cantonese. Homophones for unfortunate words are the classic failure. Machine translation will not catch these.
Prior-registration screening. Every candidate must be searched against the register before you commit. Chinese trademark similarity assesses visual form, pronunciation and meaning. A name that looks and sounds different from a prior mark can still be refused if it means the same thing.
Why the timing is unforgiving
China is first-to-file. Rights attach to whoever registers first, not whoever used first, subject only to narrow exceptions for well-known marks and for marks already used in China with a certain influence.
Those exceptions are real but unreliable. Proving that your mark is well known, or that you had acquired influence in China before the squatter filed, means evidence, argument and time. It is a remedy, not a strategy.
The practical effect is that the Chinese name should be selected and filed at the same time as the Latin mark, not after the brand succeeds in China. Waiting for commercial results before investing in the name is exactly the sequence that produces squatter cases.
Registering the Chinese name well
Once the name is chosen, there are choices about how to protect it. Each is a different scope of protection.
As a standalone word mark. The cleanest protection. You own the characters as a mark in their own right, independent of your Latin registration.
Combined with the Latin name. A single mark containing both elements. This mirrors how the brand appears on packaging, but it ties the two together: if either element of a combined mark draws a refusal, the whole mark can fail.
Combined with the logo. Similar trade-off to the above, with the same risk of one weak element dragging down the whole application.
At company-name level. Registering the Chinese name as a company name secures a different right, and one that is narrower than a trademark in the classes you sell in. It is not a substitute.
For most brands the sequence is a standalone Chinese word mark in the classes you trade in, and the Latin mark registered in parallel. Combined marks are worth adding where the combined form is how the brand actually appears in market, and where both elements are individually strong.
Frequently asked questions
Do I really need to register a Chinese version of my brand name?
If you sell to Chinese consumers, in practice yes. Chinese consumers read and search in Chinese characters, and your Latin registration does not protect the characters they use. Without a registered Chinese name, a third party can claim the name your customers already associate with you.
Should I transliterate or translate my brand name into Chinese?
Transliteration preserves the audible link to your global brand and usually produces a more distinctive, more registrable mark. Translation communicates meaning but severs the sound link and risks refusal as descriptive. Many brands combine both, though doing so well is difficult.
What happens if someone has already registered my brand's Chinese name?
You have the same remedies as for any squatted mark: opposition if the application is still in its publication window, invalidation if it has registered and was filed in bad faith, or non-use cancellation if it has sat unused for three years. Which route applies depends on where the mark sits in its lifecycle.
How do I choose a Chinese name for my trademark?
Start by deciding whether you want a phonetic match, a meaning match or an invented term. Then generate several candidates, check each with native speakers for unintended readings across Mandarin and Cantonese, and search each against the register before committing to one.
Can I register my English and Chinese trademarks together in one application?
They are separate marks and require separate applications, each with its own official fee. You can file them at the same time through the same agent, and you should, so that neither is left exposed while the other is examined.
Is a machine translation of my brand name good enough for filing?
No. Machine translation does not assess whether the characters read as awkward or unflattering, does not test homophones across Chinese regional pronunciations, and does not screen existing registrations. It is a starting point at best.
Does registering the Chinese name as a company name protect it?
Only partially. A company name registration secures rights in the trading name, which is narrower than a trademark and does not cover the goods and services you sell. It does not replace a trademark registration in your classes.
Choosing a Chinese name is a decision that is cheap to make early and expensive to correct later. If you would like candidate names checked for registrability before you file, send us your brand name and the products you sell.