Going Global
A Chinese registration does not automatically protect the same asset overseas.
Launches, distributors, exhibitions, crowdfunding, and overseas manufacturing can expose the asset.
Market value, manufacturing, competitors, enforcement, and filing windows should drive country selection.
Ownership, use evidence, renewals, licences, domains, customs, and disputes continue after filing.
Send us the issue, the relevant rights, and any deadline. We will route it to the right practice lead within one business day.
Contact UsList countries for sales, manufacturing, R&D, sourcing, exhibitions, fundraising, app distribution, and major competitors. Add the expected entry date, revenue, channel, partner, and risk for each. This separates immediate filing markets from watch markets and prevents a generic instruction to 'protect worldwide.'
Include the brand's English, Chinese, local-language, transliteration, logo, product appearance, technical features, software, content, domains, and confidential know-how.
Search core marks in each target market before announcing distributors or exhibitions. Choose between national or regional filings and the Madrid System based on local classification, refusal risk, language, enforcement documentation, ownership structure, and number of countries. An international registration remains subject to each designated member's domestic examination.
Reserve domains and social handles, and control local-language names before the market chooses them. Put distributor and licensee use under written quality and evidence rules.
For inventions and utility models, the Paris priority period is generally 12 months; for designs it is generally six months. The PCT can defer major national-phase decisions for inventions and utility models, while the Hague System may support international design filings in covered members. Route choice depends on the technology, countries, disclosure, budget, and enforcement plan.
Technology substantially completed in China may require a Chinese confidentiality examination before an invention or utility model is filed abroad. Build this into the outbound approval process.
Use the correct applicant from the first filing. Confirm employee inventions, founder contributions, commissioned work, group-company ownership, and assignments. Distribution, manufacturing, development, and platform agreements should address brand use, improvements, data, local filings, enforcement cooperation, termination, and return of assets.
Avoid placing strategic rights in a local partner merely for convenience unless governance, transfer, insolvency, and exit consequences have been assessed.
Monitor filings and online use, preserve trademark use evidence, pay renewals and patent fees, review watch notices, update Customs and platform records, and connect the portfolio to products and revenue. Revisit country priorities at each funding round, new distributor, acquisition, or product launch. Global protection is a managed system, not the result of one international form.
This article is general information about Chinese IP practice, not legal advice for a specific matter. It was last reviewed on 2026-08-21. Rules, fees, and timelines change; confirm current requirements before acting. For advice on your situation, contact our team.