You can check the status of a China trademark application through CNIPA or your agency. The stages run from filing to formal examination, substantive examination, publication and registration, and the status tells you exactly where the case stands.
The statuses you will see
- Filing received: application number issued
- Formal examination: documents being checked
- Substantive examination: conflicts and grounds being reviewed
- Published: open to opposition for 3 months
- Registered: certificate issued
Where to check
CNIPA runs the official trademark database, and your agency can pull the status directly. For clients with filings in progress, we send English updates at each stage, so you never have to decode a Chinese interface. If you have an application number and want an update, send it to us.
What to do while you wait
The 4-month substantive examination is not a quiet period. Add monitoring to catch conflicting applications, and prepare for the publication stage so you can act if an opposition appears. Waiting passively is how brands lose the race they already entered.
