The trademark legal regime of China’s Taiwan Region is built on the Trademark Act (2023 Amended Version), supplemented by the Trademark Act Enforcement Rules, Trademark Examination Standards and well-known trademark recognition operational guidelines issued by regulatory authorities. Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) under the Ministry of Economic Affairs is the sole administrative authority responsible for all trademark affairs, covering preliminary examination, registration publication, opposition proceedings, non-use cancellation, trademark transfer recordal and administrative appeal procedures.
Article 18 of the Trademark Act sets a rigid procedural requirement for foreign applicants: any overseas individual or enterprise without a local business location or residential address in the Taiwan Region must appoint a locally licensed trademark agent registered with TIPO to handle all trademark formalities. Applications filed without qualified local representation will receive an official notice of formal defects and will not enter substantive examination. This rule aims to standardize cross-border trademark communication and ensure effective service of legal documents.
China’s Taiwan Region follows the first-to-file principle for trademark ownership, consistent with the core norms of the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property. Under this rule, exclusive trademark rights are awarded to the party who completes a fully compliant filing first, regardless of prior unregistered trademark use by other market participants. Unregistered trademarks only obtain limited protection under unfair competition law, which is far weaker than the absolute exclusive rights of registered trademarks.
Six-month cross-border priority is a core institutional tool for global brand layout. For applicants that first file trademarks in Paris Convention contracting states, they may claim priority within six months of the initial filing date when submitting applications to TIPO. To validate priority claims, applicants must clearly state priority requests upon filing and submit certified copies of the original overseas application within three months after the Taiwan Region filing date. Approved priority will retroactively set the trademark’s effective filing date to the date of the foreign initial application, effectively blocking identical or confusingly similar trademark applications submitted by competitors in the interim period.
Registered trademark exclusive rights carry a 10-year protection term, calculated from the official registration publication date. Trademark owners may submit renewal applications within six months before the expiration date to extend protection. A six-month post-expiration grace period is also provided for late renewals, though filings made during the grace period incur mandatory late penalty fees. Each successful renewal extends trademark protection for another decade, with no legal cap on the total number of renewals.
The three-year non-use cancellation system constitutes the biggest compliance risk for trademark registrants, and TIPO strictly enforces this rule in administrative practice. Article 63 of the Trademark Act stipulates that if a registered trademark fails to achieve genuine commercial use on all designated goods or services for three consecutive years after registration publication, any third party may file a non-use cancellation petition with TIPO.
A critical legal distinction exists between genuine commercial use and token symbolic use. Printing trademarks only on internal corporate documents, marking samples not distributed to consumers, or attaching logos to free gifts without corresponding sales transactions do not qualify as valid trademark use evidence. When responding to non-use cancellation petitions, trademark holders must provide objective, verifiable evidence including sales contracts, commercial tax invoices, offline store promotional materials, e-commerce platform transaction records and official product packaging proof to prove continuous market circulation of trademarked goods within the three-year statutory period. Failure to submit sufficient credible use evidence within the statutory response deadline will result in TIPO issuing a revocation ruling against the entire trademark registration, and all exclusive rights of the trademark shall be deemed void retroactively starting from the revocation effective date.
After a trademark application passes substantive examination, TIPO will publish the application for a three-month opposition period. Any party with legitimate interest may file an opposition based on absolute grounds (e.g., identical to national emblems, deceptive descriptions) or relative grounds (e.g., confusingly similar to prior registered trademarks). If the opposition is upheld, the trademark application will be rejected entirely; if the opposition is dismissed, the trademark will proceed to registration.
Well-known trademarks receive expanded cross-class protection beyond their registered designated goods or services. When a trademark is formally recognized as well-known by TIPO or local courts, its owner may block registration and prohibit use of identical or highly similar trademarks across unrelated product and service categories, even without cross-class registration filings. Unlike ordinary registered trademarks limited to their designated classes, well-known trademark protection targets acts that dilute the distinctiveness of the famous brand or damage its market reputation.
Applicants or trademark owners dissatisfied with TIPO’s examination decisions, opposition rulings or non-use cancellation verdicts may file an administrative appeal with the Intellectual Property and Commercial Court within 30 days after receiving the written decision notice. The IP Commercial Court conducts a full re-review of factual evidence and legal application in trademark cases. If parties remain unsatisfied with the court’s first-instance judgment, they may further file an appeal with the Taiwan High Court to complete the two-tier judicial remedy procedure for trademark disputes.
1.1.IPcrossark：https://www.ipcrossark.com/en/trademark.html?cid=47
1. Taiwan Intellectual Property Office Official Portal: https://www.tipo.gov.tw/
2. Full Text of Taiwan Region Trademark Act (Official English PDF): https://wpto.com.tw/en/images/laws_file/taiwan/Trademark_Act_2016(2016.12.15).pdf
3. WIPO WIPOLEX Database for Taiwan Region IP Legislation: https://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/legislation/details/19559
