The challenges of Xinpinmu's overseas expansion are more difficult than you can imagine.

China is experiencing an unprecedented wave of going global. The manufacturing, internet, and brand sectors are converging in the same direction, creating an unparalleled momentum. The "New Temu" plan launched by Pinduoduo at the end of 2025 is one of the most ambitious flagships in this wave.

As of the end of May 2026, Pinduoduo's senior management signaled clearly in their latest statement that New Temu has fully entered the stage of actual operation. The team is integrating the supply chains of Temu and Pinduoduo, delving deep into industrial clusters, selecting factories with the most solid craftsmanship, and jointly creating with global top IPs to incubate self-owned brands category by category in different markets. Temu's approach is to increase sales volume with white-label products, while New Temu aims to create brand premium on the same supply chain.

Few people realize that when making the leap from "selling others' products" to "selling one's own brands," the first major challenge will be intellectual property.

The challenge facing New Temu is more difficult than anyone imagined. It is not only an ultimate test of the platform's capabilities but also a comprehensive examination of whether Chinese manufacturing can gain respect within the rules of mature markets. Chinese factories on board this big ship need to recognize a fact: this is no longer an ordinary order but a complete transformation from "Made in China" to "Global Brands." There will surely be storms during the journey across the sea, but the cost of staying on the shore will be even higher.

01

Path: The Thirty Years of Japanese Enterprises

The problems faced by Chinese enterprises going global today are exactly the same as those experienced by Japanese enterprises more than forty years ago.

In the early 1980s, Japanese manufacturing swept across Europe and the United States with high-quality and low-cost products. However, while the products went global, the brands did not. This situation is highly similar to the starting point of China's current global expansion.

The change was forced. Once Japanese enterprises entered the European and American markets in the form of brands, intellectual property immediately became a deadly weapon for competing for survival space. Japanese enterprises began to frequently face intellectual property lawsuits: Honda was accused of engine design infringement, Toyota was sued for trademark similarity in North America, Nintendo's core trademarks were preemptively registered by multiple entities in Europe, and Sony was sued for patent infringement in the United States... Each lawsuit forced Japanese enterprises to do the same thing: not only sell products but also "plant" their brands legally in the target markets.

Figure: Timeline of barriers faced by Japanese enterprises going global overseas. Source: Jinduan Research Institute

The lesson from this history is that intellectual property barriers are not just legal issues. They represent a whole set of institutional capabilities - from brand naming, trademark layout, appearance patent search to the establishment of a local legal team. Each aspect requires systematic preparation before going global.

Enterprises that respond passively often pay the price of permanently losing the entire market.

02

Dangerous Shoals: From Trademarks to UPC, Unprecedented Hurdles

If the main battlefield for Japanese enterprises back then was the United States, then New Temu and Chinese brands going to the European Union today are facing a more sophisticated and multi - layered set of intellectual property and compliance barriers than the United States back then. The interlocking of each layer will cost those who are not prepared.

Figure: Three risk levels for Chinese brands going to the European Union. Source: Jinduan Research Institute

First Layer: The Shallow Waters of Trademarks and Copyrights.

This is the most easily triggered risk and the most unfamiliar area for Chinese enterprises. Statistics show that more than 50% of Chinese enterprises going global have experienced trademark pre - registration overseas, and time - honored brands and small and medium - sized cross - border brands are not spared.

Beyond trademark pre - registration, a more hidden risk comes from the "unity principle" of EU trademarks: the 27 member states share the same validity, but if an objection is established in any one country, the trademark will be invalidated across the entire EU. In 2023, a Shenzhen 3C accessories enterprise had its EU trademark invalidated as a whole because a local enterprise in Lithuania raised an objection on the grounds of "similar trademarks," even though it had been operating in major markets such as Germany and France for five years. Re - registering took 18 months, and the order loss reached up to 3.7 million euros.

Figure: Statistical table of intellectual property - related applications and disputes mainly related to trademarks in the EU. Source: Jinduan Research Institute, statistics based on data from multiple industry associations

Copyright is another hidden danger. In October 2025, a Swedish court ruled that a Chinese e - commerce company had infringed the copyright of a local e - commerce company, Nelly, by using more than 30 product pictures without permission, and fined it hundreds of thousands of Swedish kronor.

The cost is not just the fine. Such cases are prompting the EU to extend copyright enforcement from merchants to consumers, and every consumer order may face customs review.

Second Layer: The Deep Waters of Design Patents and UPC.

The clothing, home furnishings, and outdoor categories are all in this high - risk zone.

Being sued for design patent infringement by others is just a common risk. A more difficult - to - prevent threat lies in the jurisdiction system of the Unified Patent Court (UPC). Its jurisdiction covers 18 EU member states, and the approval rate of preliminary injunctions is more than half. The applicant can apply unilaterally without notifying the defendant, and the court can issue an injunction based on prima facie evidence. Once the goods are seized, the storage and demurrage fees are all borne by the owner.

In addition, the specter of NPEs (Non - Practicing Entities) has begun to haunt the consumer field. These companies do not produce any goods, and their only business model is to acquire patents and then sue. Previously, their main battlefields were the technology and automotive industries, but as the categories of Chinese brands going global continue to expand, it is only a matter of time before NPE lawsuits appear in the clothing and home furnishings fields.

Third Layer: The Deep Waters of Product Compliance.

If trademarks and patents are "litigation risks," then product compliance is the "systematic access cost." It is a threshold that must be crossed before each shipment.

The GPSR (General Product Safety Regulation) came into full effect on December 13, 2024. Its core requirements include: for all consumer goods entering the EU, each online product information must clearly display the manufacturer's name, mailing address, email address, product identification (model/batch/serial number), and necessary warning/safety information. Without an EU representative and product labels, products cannot be listed.

The REACH regulation is another detailed testing checklist. As of February 2026, the SVHC (Substances of Very High Concern) list has been updated to 253 items. For each additional material, the testing cost increases by 300 to 800 yuan. The basic testing cost for a single - material product is about 2,000 to 3,000 yuan, and the testing cost for products with multiple materials and coatings can reach 5,000 to 8,000 yuan.

The REACH testing cost for hundreds of SKUs in the three major categories is conservatively estimated to be in the tens of millions of yuan.

EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility) is also a silent cost that is easily overlooked: electronic waste, batteries, and packaging all need to be registered separately in each sales country. Calculated for the five core countries, the basic EPR investment is in the hundreds of thousands of euros.

Figure: Cost calculation table for mainstream compliance projects in the EU (detailed cost table)

More compliance variables are on the way. Starting in 2027, textile products need to be accompanied by a digital product passport to disclose the full - life - cycle environmental data. The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism is planned to be extended to the textile industry in 2027, and Chinese textiles with a high dependence on coal - fired power will be subject to a carbon border tax.

Comprehensively calculated, for a clothing factory with an annual revenue of tens of millions of yuan, the basic compliance cost for a single category to enter the five core EU countries - CE certification, REACH testing, EPR registration, VAT tax, and EU representative annual fee - has reached hundreds of thousands of yuan. After expanding to multiple categories and SKUs, the total compliance cost will rise from the millions to the tens of millions of yuan.

In the traditional foreign trade model, these costs are borne by overseas importers and brand owners. New Temu's self - operated model means that all costs will fall on the platform and cooperating merchants.

04

Breaking the Barriers: Learning to Go Global While Going Global, Learning to Survive within the Rules

Facing these layers of barriers, the worst choice is to wait. Wait for the government to negotiate, wait for the rules to become more favorable, wait for others to pave the way? Barriers never get lower just because you're looking at them from the outside. The only truly effective way is to step in and learn to use the rules within the rules.

The following four aspects are essential lessons in this process:

1. Granularity of Trademark Layout.

Before entering the EU market, enterprises must complete trademark registration for core categories, covering all 27 member states of the EUIPO.

However, registration is just the first step. More importantly, enterprises need to establish a global trademark monitoring mechanism to detect pre - registration behavior in advance. Leading brands such as Moutai and Haier have already invested a lot of resources in overseas rights protection. Small and medium - sized brands also need to include trademark monitoring as a necessary step before going global.

2. Avoidance Design of Design Patents.

Before finalizing the design of each product, enterprises need to conduct a search of existing design patents in the target market and make substantial differences in structure, pattern, and function.

However, in the short term, most enterprises going global still lack talents for EU design patent search. A practical compromise is to entrust local European patent lawyers to issue non - infringement opinions for core categories and reduce risks through design differentiation for non - core categories.

3. Active Response to UPC Lawsuits.

For New Temu and the Chinese merchants behind it, once they enter the EU market, they need to establish a regular UPC lawsuit monitoring mechanism to ensure a legal response within a very short time after receiving a temporary injunction application. Statistics show that the approval rate of preliminary injunctions by the UPC is more than 50%, but respondents who actively defend still have nearly a half - chance of preventing the issuance or maintenance of the injunction.

4. Construction of a Compliance Middle Platform.

New Temu needs to establish a platform - level compliance middle platform: unified CE certification management, unified REACH testing sharing, and unified EPR registration services, so that merchants do not have to grope their way forward alone. The platform assumes all legal responsibilities of the importer, and merchants complete a systematic upgrade from "processing according to samples" to "self - owned brands."

Figure: Matrix of solutions corresponding to risks of going global (strategy implementation table). Source: Jinduan Research Institute

A more profound change occurs at the cognitive level. In the past, Chinese factories did not need to think about "whether this pattern will cause infringement," "whether this structure has a patent," or "whether the nickel content of this zipper exceeds the standard." Now they must think about these questions, and they need to do so at the product design stage, not after the goods are seized by customs.

As can be seen, the intellectual property issues faced by Chinese enterprises going global are essentially not a one - time investment but a reconstruction of a whole set of institutional capabilities. Enterprises that complete this reconstruction earliest will be the first to gain the qualification to operate independently in the EU market.

04

Expedition: The Last Lesson from "Made in China" to "Global Brands"

The real sign of the era of large - scale global expansion is not just the increase in the number of port containers but also the first large - scale and systematic learning by Chinese enterprises on how to survive and compete within the rules of mature markets.

New Temu is the flagship of this learning process, but not the only learner. From Haier to Anker Innovations, from BYD to NIO, every Chinese enterprise going global is taking the same lesson: intellectual property is the infrastructure, and compliance is the admission ticket.

This is the most difficult lesson from "Made in China" to "Global Brands." It took Japanese enterprises thirty years to answer this question. Chinese enterprises are trying to do it faster, relying on the depth of the supply chain and the late - mover advantage. However, some things cannot be rushed: brand trust, legal experience, and compliance inertia.

New Temu's investment of tens of billions is not just a bet on the supply chain and brands but also on this admission ticket. It took Sony a whole generation to go from being a dusty product in a Chicago consignment store to a global brand. Every Chinese enterprise crossing this sea will ultimately have to answer the same question: When the rules are no longer your shield but your arena, are you ready?

This article is written based on publicly available information and is for information exchange only. It does not constitute any investment advice.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Jinduan" (ID: jinduan006), written by Wang Zhe and published by 36Kr with authorization.