The short answer

  • Trademark infringement is not established merely because a name looks similar. Article 57(2) requires use of an identical or similar mark on identical or similar goods or services in a way that is likely to cause confusion — all three elements must be present.
  • The scope of protection is limited to the mark as registered and the goods for which it is registered (Article 56). Restaurant services fall in Class 43; holding only a Class 35 registration does not entitle you to stop someone else from running a noodle shop under a similar sign.
  • Where a registered mark contains a generic name or a place name, the proprietor has no right to prohibit others from making legitimate use (正当使用) of it (Article 59(1)). “Xiaomian” (小面) is a generic name; “Yu” (渝) is the abbreviation for Chongqing.
  • A prior user may continue to use the mark within its original scope (Article 59(3)); and where the registrant has not used the mark for three consecutive years, the accused infringer need not pay damages (Article 64).
  • Registering a shop name that someone else is already using as your own trademark may fall foul of Article 32, and the registration can be declared invalid within five years (Article 45).
  • Damages follow Article 63: the proprietor's actual loss, then the infringer's profit, then a multiple of a licensing fee; only where none of these can be calculated does statutory damages of up to RMB 5 million apply.

1. What happened, according to public reports

In early June 2026 a husband-and-wife noodle shop in Nanyang, Henan, trading as “Yujian Xiaomian” (渝见小面), received a court summons. The plaintiff was Yujian Xiaomian (遇见小面), a Hong Kong-listed chain (02408.HK), suing for trademark infringement and claiming RMB 10,000. The owner, Ms Mao, is from Chongqing; a bowl of noodles sells for RMB 8, and she said she would have to sell a thousand bowls to pay the claim.

The two signs sound alike but are written differently: the plaintiff's first character (遇, yù) means “to encounter”, while the shop's (渝, Yú) is the one-character abbreviation for Chongqing, used in its name to signal the Chongqing style of its noodles. Three of the four characters are the same and the tones differ.

According to media reports, the other side's lawyers offered to withdraw on condition that the shop pay RMB 7,000–8,000. On 13 June Yujian Xiaomian withdrew the claim; in the early hours of 15 June the founder, Song Qi, published “A letter to Yujian Xiaomian” apologising, describing the episode as “a serious management failure”, and announcing that the company would give its registered Class 35 trademark for “Yujian Xiaomian” (渝见小面) to the shop free of charge and suspend its cooperation with the outsourced law firm.

One point needs to be clear: this dispute ended in withdrawal and an apology, and there is no effective judgment. What follows explains how the rules operate, not the reasoning of a judgment in this case.

2. A trademark protects a class, not a string of characters

Article 56: the exclusive right to a registered trademark is limited to the mark as registered and to the goods in respect of which it is registered.

Trademarks are classified under the Classification of Similar Goods and Services. Restaurant services fall in Class 43. Class 35 covers advertising, business management, business administration and office functions, including “sales promotion for others”.

My summary: to use a Class 35 registration to stop a noodle shop from adopting a similar sign, the proprietor must first clear the hurdle of whether the services are similar and whether confusion is likely. Articles 11 and 12 of the judicial interpretation provide that services are similar where their purpose, content, method and target users are the same, or where the relevant public generally considers that there is a particular connection between them and confusion is likely; the Classification is only a reference.

A registration in Class 35 alone is not a monopoly over restaurant signage. That is also what lies behind the line in the apology letter: “if you still need to apply for a Class 43 trademark…”.

3. Being alike is only the first step — confusion is the core

Article 57(2) is a three-part test: identical or similar goods or services, plus an identical or similar mark, plus a likelihood of confusion.

Article 9 of the judicial interpretation: marks are similar where the shape, pronunciation or meaning of the characters, or the composition and colour of a device, or the overall structure of the combined elements, are similar enough that the relevant public is likely to be mistaken as to the source, or to believe that there is a particular connection with the plaintiff. Article 10: the standard is the ordinary attention of the relevant public; overall comparison and comparison of the dominant parts are both used; the comparison is carried out in isolation; and the distinctiveness and reputation of the plaintiff's mark are also taken into account.

The plaintiff's mark Yujian Xiaomian (遇见小面) and the defendant's sign “Yujian Xiaomian” (渝见小面): three of the four characters are identical, the pronunciation is close (the tones differ), the characters look clearly different, and the “Yu” character (渝) carries a geographical reference. If it were fought out, the outcome would turn on three points — whether Yujian Xiaomian has any reputation in Nanyang, whether consumers were actually confused, and whether the defendant was free-riding on another's goodwill (攀附商誉).

Let me also correct one misunderstanding: you cannot argue that “you have no shop in Nanyang, so I am not infringing” — a trademark right is effective throughout the country. What can save a defendant is “no likelihood of confusion” and “legitimate use”.

4. Defence one: legitimate use

Article 59(1) (excerpt): where a registered trademark contains the generic name, device or model of the goods in question, or directly indicates the quality, main raw materials, function, use, weight, quantity or other characteristics of the goods, or contains a place name, the proprietor of the registered trademark has no right to prohibit others from making legitimate use of it.

In this case there are two layers. First, “xiaomian” is the generic name of a Chongqing-style noodle dish, like “zhajiangmian” or “beef noodles”, and anyone may use it. Second, “Yu” is the abbreviation for Chongqing, the owner herself is from Chongqing, and using “Yu” to indicate the style and origin of the food is descriptive use (描述性使用).

The boundary is the word “legitimate”. If the second half of the sign (见小面) is made especially large, if the other side's typeface and colour scheme are copied, if the shopfront says “the same as Yujian Xiaomian”, the use stops being descriptive and becomes free-riding, and the defence fails. Legitimate use is a defence, not an automatic exemption; you have to show, with evidence, how you used the words.

5. Defences two and three: prior use and three years of non-use

Article 59(3): where, before the registrant filed its application, another person had already used an identical or similar mark that had a certain influence on identical or similar goods, the registrant has no right to prohibit that person from continuing to use it within the original scope of use, but may require an appropriate distinguishing mark to be added. The difficulty lies in proof: the date the business licence was registered, the lease, photographs from the opening, the date of the first review on a food-delivery platform, purchase invoices, local press coverage — ordinary paperwork that becomes a timestamp when trouble starts.

Article 64: where the registrant claims damages and the accused infringer pleads that the registrant has not used the mark, the court may require the registrant to produce evidence of actual use of the mark during the three years before the infringement occurred; if that cannot be proved, and no other loss can be proved either, the accused infringer bears no liability for damages.

6. The mirror image: registering someone else's shop name as a trademark

Public reports state that Yujian Xiaomian had registered “Yujian Xiaomian” (渝见小面) in Class 35. Multi-class, similar “defensive registration” (防御性注册) is not in itself unlawful, but defence has its limits.

Article 32: an application for trademark registration must not prejudice the prior rights that others already hold, nor may a mark that another person has already used and that has a certain influence be registered in bad faith by improper means. Article 45: where that article is contravened, the prior right holder or an interested party may, within five years from the date of registration, request that the registered trademark be declared invalid.

My summary: when you register a rival shop's name that you never intended to use and then sue the rival, the character of the act changes from “defence” to trademark trolling (碰瓷). What angered the public was not enforcement as such, but enforcement outsourced into an assembly line.

The other side of the coin: if a small shopkeeper really does copy a big brand's signage typeface, interior and menu design, that may amount to unfair competition, and “my shop is small” is no defence.

7. If damages really are owed, how much

Article 63: damages are assessed first on the proprietor's actual loss; where that is hard to calculate, on the infringer's profit; where that too is hard to calculate, by reference to a multiple of the trademark licensing fee. For malicious infringement in serious circumstances, the court may award punitive damages of between one and five times the determined amount — up to five times the determined amount. The award should also cover the reasonable expenses incurred to stop the infringement, including investigation and evidence-gathering costs and lawyers' fees that comply with the rules. Where none of the three can be calculated, statutory damages of up to RMB 5 million apply — that is a ceiling, not a starting point; judged against the circumstances, awards of a few hundred or a few thousand yuan are not uncommon in volume enforcement (批量维权) cases.

Then look at the arithmetic of volume enforcement: claim RMB 10,000, settle at RMB 7,000–8,000, discount to RMB 4,000–5,000. For a small shop, the cost of defending in another city — lawyers' fees, travel, lost business — often exceeds that figure, so “pay and be done with it” becomes the rational choice; for the enforcement side, it is a business of “one more defendant, one more fee”.

The law has its limits too: Article 132 of the Civil Code of the PRC prohibits the abuse of civil rights to harm the lawful rights and interests of others. In volume cases where ownership is unclear, loss cannot be evidenced and the only aim is settlement, courts in recent years have increasingly dismissed the claims or cut the awards substantially. The brand side pays a price as well: the acts of an outsourced law firm are borne by the principal.

8. Six things to do when a demand letter or summons arrives

  • Do not rush to sign, and do not rush to transfer money. First see which trademark the complaint relies on, what its registration number is, and which services it is registered for.
  • Check the China Trademark Office database for the class, the validity period, any recorded assignment or licence, and whether cancellation or invalidation has ever been applied for.
  • Preserve your prior-use evidence: business licence, lease, photographs from the opening, the time of your first delivery-platform order, purchase invoices, local press coverage — all of it dated earlier than the other side's filing date.
  • Check whether the other side has actually used the mark. Where it has not been used for three consecutive years, apply for cancellation (Article 49(2)) on the one hand and plead Article 64 against damages on the other.
  • Carry out a confusion assessment: compare the marks overall, compare the dominant parts, and compare them in isolation; gather evidence that the other side has no outlet locally and that the customer base and price point are different.
  • Any settlement must be written as a one-off: this agreement is a complete and final resolution of all disputes, and the proprietor will make no further claim in respect of use before the date of signature — and require the other side to produce a court ruling permitting withdrawal. Oral assurances do not count.

9. Limits that need to be stated

This case ended with a withdrawal and an apology, and there is no effective judgment; the analysis above of whether infringement is made out is an application of the rules, not a ruling. On the amount claimed, the video commentary says RMB 10,000 while media reports describe a withdrawal condition of RMB 7,000–8,000; the two figures differ, and this article has not seen the original complaint. The statement that Yujian Xiaomian registered “Yujian Xiaomian” (渝见小面) in Class 35 comes from public reports; what relationship that trademark bears to the basis of this claim is not explained in the public information, and this article draws no inference from it. Judgments on classification and on similar services vary widely from case to case: the same four characters, in a different industry or with a different reputation, could produce the opposite conclusion.

If your shop has received a trademark infringement demand letter or summons, or you are preparing to register your own brand, you are welcome to contact Wang Xin's office: telephone 186-0113-9509, WeChat wang223040.

Quick answers

Does a similar name on a restaurant sign amount to trademark infringement in China?
Not by itself. Article 57(2) of the Trademark Law of the PRC requires an identical or similar mark, use on identical or similar goods or services, and a likelihood of confusion. All three elements must be present, and protection is limited to the mark as registered and the goods or services covered by the registration.
Can the owner of a Class 35 trademark stop a noodle shop from using a similar sign?
Only if the services are similar and confusion is likely. Restaurant services fall in Class 43; Class 35 covers advertising, business management and office functions. A Class 35 registration is not a monopoly over restaurant signage, and a mark that contains a generic name or a place name cannot be used to prohibit the legitimate use of those words.
What should a small shop do when it receives a trademark demand letter or a court summons?
Check which mark and which registration number are relied on and what services it covers; verify the registration on the China Trademark Office database; assemble prior-use evidence dated before the other side's filing date; check whether the mark has actually been used, since three years of non-use supports both cancellation and a defence to damages under Article 64; assess the likelihood of confusion; and put any settlement in writing as a complete and final resolution, with a court ruling permitting withdrawal.

This is an English edition of Wang Xin’s original Chinese article, 卖8块钱一碗的小面，被上市公司索赔1万元：商标侵权，不是名字像就算. It explains the law of the People’s Republic of China in general terms and is not legal advice for any particular case; outcomes depend on the specific facts and on how local authorities apply the rules.