China's 2026 Trademark Law and Brazil's Industrial Property Law: A Comparative Analysis for Cross-Border Brand Strategy
A study co-authored by two CCLS alumni.
Eduardo Mendes (Intellectual Property Law LLM, 2011), who currently works as Partner at Cmartins Advogados in Brazil, and Lena Shen (Intellectual Property Law LLM, 2011) Senior Partner at the Chinese law firm DAKUN IP LAW, have recently co-authored a new study.
China’s revised Trademark Law, adopted on June 26, 2026, and scheduled to enter into force on January 1, 2027, introduces significant changes to the country’s trademark protection framework. In a comparative analysis prepared by CMARTINS Advogados in collaboration with DAKUN IP Law Firm, Eduardo Mendes and Lena Shen examine how the reform compares with Brazil’s Industrial Property Law (Law No. 9,279/1996), highlighting key differences and their implications for cross-border brand protection.
Although both jurisdictions follow the first-to-file principle and share the fundamental objective of protecting distinctive commercial signs, their legislative approaches differ considerably. China’s reform strengthens administrative enforcement, expands the categories of registrable marks and introduces more specific mechanisms to address bad-faith trademark filings. Brazil, by contrast, continues to rely more heavily on judicial proceedings and administrative regulations to address developments not expressly covered by its statutory framework.
One of the most notable differences concerns the scope of trademark protection. China’s revised law expressly recognizes sound and motion marks, while Brazil’s legislation remains more restrictive in its statutory definition of registrable signs. This asymmetry highlights the importance of adapting intellectual property strategies to the specific requirements of each jurisdiction rather than assuming that protection secured in one country will automatically extend to another.
The analysis also identifies significant differences in enforcement and deterrence. China’s revised framework introduces administrative fines for certain bad-faith filings and provides for penalties against trademark agencies involved in such conduct. Brazil’s legislation offers no directly equivalent administrative penalty for ordinary bad-faith filing, relying instead on mechanisms such as opposition, invalidation proceedings and, where applicable, civil remedies.
Other relevant differences concern the protection of well-known marks, cancellation for non-use and the calculation of damages. China’s reform expands the potential for cross-class protection of unregistered well-known marks and maintains a three-year non-use cancellation threshold, compared with five years in Brazil. The two systems also differ in their approaches to damages, with China providing a statutory ceiling in certain circumstances, while Brazil relies on alternative methods for calculating lost profits.
For businesses managing international trademark portfolios, these distinctions have practical consequences for filing strategies, risk assessment, enforcement planning and licensing arrangements. The comparison underscores the importance of understanding not only the substantive rights available in each market, but also the procedural mechanisms through which those rights can be secured and enforced.
Rather than establishing one jurisdiction as categorically more protective than the other, the study provides a framework for identifying legal asymmetries and developing more informed cross-border brand strategies as China’s reform takes effect and Brazil’s trademark system continues to evolve.
Read the full study- China TM 2026 vs Law Comparative Analysis.pdf [PDF 197KB]