Insights

On 14 October, China's National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) and the General Administration of Customs (GACC) jointly released an Opinion on Strengthening Coordinated IP Protection (Guo Zhi Fa Bao Zi [2026] No. 30, signed on 8 October). It turns the two agencies' cross-border cooperation on trademarks and patents from case-by-case help into a standing mechanism with clear divisions of labour.

Data flows both ways, so the border has more to work with

The core is information sharing.

On 12 October 2026, China's National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) published Notice No. 692, adding 18 signs notified by the WIPO International Bureau to its list of protected official signs: state emblems and flags, and the emblems, names and abbreviations of intergovernmental organisations (news). The same day, Oman's IP office set out which elements cannot be used in trademarks, with official emblems strictly restricted (news). Both point to the same rule: some signs cannot serve as trademarks at all, whoever filed first. For foreign brands entering China, the common traps are their own country's flag or name, well-known place names and abbreviations that match an international organisation.

China's National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) has issued an Opinion on Strengthening the Construction of the IP Public Service System (Guo Zhi Fa Fu Zi [2026] No. 29, dated 30 September 2026 and released on 13 October), based on the Outline for Building an IP Powerhouse (2021-2035) and the 15th Five-Year Plan for IP Protection and Use. It sets a goal that by 2030 the IP public service system will be more complete and services more precise and effective.

On 9 October the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) sued Amazon Web Services (AWS) for patent infringement in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts (case 1:26-cv-14600), alleging that hardware-security technology used on AWS-related platforms infringes two US patents MIT holds — US 7,681,103 and US 7,818,569. The case is at the complaint stage and the court has made no finding of infringement (reported by Reuters on 12 October).

The two patents come from MIT's physical unclonable function (PUF) technology, invented by MIT professor Srinivas Devadas and his team and traceable to their foundational 2002 paper and the first PUF chip.

The New York Times, Agence France-Presse (AFP) and The Economist are among more than 40 media organisations that have joined the publisher coalition SPUR (Standards for Publisher Usage Rights), UK journalism outlet Press Gazette reported on 13 October; the US magazine The Atlantic and Brazil's National Association of Newspapers (ANJ) signed on the same day. SPUR's membership has now reached 80 across more than 20 countries.

SPUR was launched in February 2026 by The Guardian, the Financial Times, The Telegraph, the BBC and Sky News, with the Associated Press among its founding members.

According to Reuters and other media, a federal judge in Pennsylvania on 2 October 2026 denied Starbucks' motion to dismiss a lawsuit by Workers United. The union asks the court to declare that its use of the name "Starbucks Workers United" and an adapted logo with a raised fist does not infringe Starbucks' marks; it argues this is nominative use that simply says it is an organisation of Starbucks employees (news). This is a procedural step and nothing has been decided. But the question is a common one: when may someone else mention your trademark? In China, resellers, repair shops, accessory makers and comparative advertisers run into this line every day, and foreign brand owners need to know where it sits.