# If CNIPA refuses your application What a CNIPA trademark refusal means, partial versus total refusal, the short review deadline, and how a refusal can change the filing path. Canonical URL: https://ginbing.com/docs/china-trademark/responding-to-refusal Markdown URL: https://ginbing.com/docs/china-trademark/responding-to-refusal/index.md ## TLDR A refusal is an examination decision with short deadlines. Ginbing translates the notice and flags the deadline. ## Guide A refusal is one of the outcomes CNIPA can reach during examination. It is not the end of the application by default, but it does start a short, fixed clock. This page explains what a refusal notice means, how a partial refusal differs from a total refusal, and what you have to decide if you want to keep going. Ginbing translates the notice and flags its deadline so the issue is visible in your order. ## A refusal is an examination decision, not a rejection of you For how CNIPA notices work in general, including the filing receipt and correction requests, see [CNIPA official notices](/docs/china-trademark/official-notices). This page is only about refusals. When CNIPA examines your mark, it checks the application for formal problems and then for registrability: whether the mark is distinctive enough, and whether it conflicts with earlier marks already on file. If the examiner finds a problem, the result is a refusal. The notice states the legal grounds and identifies what it is refusing. A refusal does not mean you did anything wrong in your filing. The common reasons are about the mark itself or about earlier rights, not about a mistake in your paperwork. The notice tells you what CNIPA objected to, which is the starting point for any response. ## Partial refusal and total refusal mean different things The notice will be one of two kinds, and the difference changes your options. - **Partial refusal.** CNIPA approves some of your goods or services and refuses others, usually within a single class. The approved items can move forward toward publication and registration. To keep the approved items on their own track while you challenge the refused items, applicants commonly split the application into a divisional filing. That is a separate procedure with its own rules and its own short deadline, also counted from when you receive the notice, so confirm the exact dates before relying on them. - **Total refusal.** CNIPA refuses the whole application. Nothing proceeds unless you ask CNIPA to review the refusal and that review succeeds. > If your filing was made through the Madrid international system, partial refusals behave differently: the approved goods or services generally proceed regardless of whether you challenge the refused part. Confirm how your specific filing route handles this before relying on it. Read the notice carefully to see which items were refused and which were approved. Ginbing posts the original notice and an English translation to your order so you can see exactly what CNIPA decided. ## The review deadline is short and fixed If you want to contest a refusal, you ask CNIPA to review it. This is the review of rejection, decided by the trademark review function within CNIPA, the work that formerly sat with the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board before it was absorbed into CNIPA during the 2018 reorganization of China’s trademark authorities. The deadline to request that review is short. Under Article 34 of the Trademark Law, the general rule is **15 days from when you receive the refusal**. Miss it and the refusal usually stands, so the date you receive the notice is the date that matters. > **Warning:** The 15-day window is strict and starts on receipt, not on the day you get around to reading the notice. How the deadline is counted can depend on how CNIPA delivered the notice, including electronic delivery rules that can affect the practical calculation. Do not assume you have extra time. If you intend to respond, treat the clock as already running and confirm the exact last date. Ginbing flags the deadline when it posts a refusal to your order so you are not relying on yourself to spot it in a Chinese-language document. The official source for the 15-day review period is Article 34 of the [2019 Trademark Law](https://www.cnipa.gov.cn/art/2019/7/30/art_95_28179.html). ## Deciding whether to respond A review is not automatic. CNIPA decides based on the refusal grounds, the earlier marks cited, and the arguments and evidence put forward. A review that succeeds returns the application to the examination track toward publication; a review that fails can sometimes be taken further to the Beijing Intellectual Property Court. Some refusals are contested; some are better answered by adjusting your mark or your goods and services and filing again. A refusal review is a new procedural decision based on the grounds and evidence in the notice. Check the current [Terms](/terms) for the filing package boundary, and decide how to respond before the notice deadline.