According to the provisions of China’s Trademark Law, if a trademark has not been used continuously for three years, others can apply for revocation of the trademark. The Trademark Office will then issue a notice asking the trademark holder to respond and amend within a limited time. In this case, the defendant needs to provide evidence to respond and prove.

How to provide evidence or what should the evidence be?

In short, the evidence can be an agreement or a brochure or an advertisement or an invoice or anything else that can prove that you have used the mark within the past 3 years from the date of your request. But if you are a trademark registered by class, you must provide evidence of use in all classes, if not, you can only prove that you have used the trademark in some classes of the trademark if the evidence is accepted, other classes of trademarks will be revoke. At the same time, the defendant must collect and reply to the Trademark Office within 2 months or present justifications for not using the trademark. Acceptable justifications are as follows:

1) Force Majeure;

2) Stop using it due to national policy;

3) Cessation of use due to bankruptcy liquidation;

4) Other reasons acceptable to the Trademark Office.

When submitting evidence, you need to be aware of the following recommendations:

1) It is much better to use the original proof than the photocopy, such as various agreements with your business partners related to the trademark mentioned in the revocation application, preferably with a stamp on the perforation.

2) Brochures or advertisements with your trademark that can be proven to have been used within the above 3 years and include the designated class of registered trademark, and all brochures or advertisements must be proven to have been used within the above 3 years. The cost of advertising and brochures, the invoice sent by the printer, the name of the publication, the publisher, the time of publication, etc. form a chain of evidence.

3) Regarding commercial documents, they must be originals and cannot be used within your company or partners.

4) Some official documents from official offices are more credible than others.