If a foreign company is planning to do business in China, particularly like supplying products or services in the Chinese market, trademark filing and registration at the CNIPA for the corresponding Chinese version of its English/Latin words is necessary and recommended.

Up to now most foreign companies are quite aware of the importance of registering in advance their English/Latin word mark in China to prevent squatting, however many of them overlook their brands in Chinese characters. Here are the reasons for registering in Chinese characters for their trademarks:

1. Trademarks in Chinese characters are certainly easier for Chinese consumers to identify and remember, and thus help spread the marks to the Chinese consumers.

2. Filing and registration in advance for the corresponding Chinese version of its English/Latin words will prevent those “smart heads” and “quick hands” to squat or imitate to profit from misleading or confusion.

3. Trademarks in Chinese characters can avoid bad nicknames.

In practice, if an English/Latin brand difficult for the Chinese people to read is widely welcomed by the consumers in the Chinese market, the public may give some “nicknames” according to their pronunciation or composition in order to remember the brand. However, such “nickname” may have some negative meanings or some elements of ridicule and joking, which will lead to the damage of the brand.

Some previous cases show that Chinese consumers’ nicknames may be more even popular than the original English/Latin brands. Therefore, some squatters will see the opportunity to preemptively register trademarks in Chinese characters, which may bring unnecessary trouble to the use and promotion of original English/Latin brands in the Chinese market, such as causing confusion among consumers about the source of the goods, or increasing the risk of using their Chinese nicknames to produce counterfeits. In the follow-up proceedings, the real brand owners have to put in a lot of money and time to protect or defend their rights, examples of such include “Google” v.s. “谷歌”, “Mamma Mia!” v.s. “妈妈咪呀”, and “Jordan” v.s. “乔丹”, to name just a few.

Coming next, is how shall an English/Latin trademark be translated into Chinese. Normally the foreign applicant has three options: translation, transliteration or a combination of both translation and transliteration. The ideal method is to make the translation/transliteration positive and attractive while maintaining a strong connection to the original English/Latin, as the following examples show:

Transliteration: 拉菲(LAFITE), 迪士尼(Disney), 西门子(Siemens), 福特(Ford), 亚马逊(Amazon), 奥迪(Audi), 耐克(NIKE), 阿迪达斯(Adidas), 谷歌 (Google).

Translation: 步行者(WALKMAN), 空客(Airbus), 脸书(Facebook), 壳牌(Shell), 通用(General Electric), 大众(Volkswagen), 微软(Microsoft), 软银(Softbank).

Combination of Transliteration and Translation: 可口可乐(Coca Cola), 宜家(IKEA), 宝马(BMW), 奔驰(Mercedes-Benz), 保时捷(Porsche), 露华浓(REVLON), 爱马仕(Hermès), 家乐福(Carrefour), 领英(LinkedIn), 联合利华(Unilever), 达美航空(Delta), 百安居(B&Q), 赛百味(Subway).

Before last, the same filing and registration is also recommended in Hong Kong and Macao in addition to the Chinese mainland, and Taiwan as well, as Chinese are much more commonly used by the people there even if English or Portuguese are also the official languages in Hong Kong and Macao on the one hand, and the exchanges of people and business are much more frequent on the other.