China → Europe
File before you exhibit.
In Europe the name and the shape belong to whoever registered them, not to whoever created them. We help Chinese companies file before a trade show rather than after a problem — and act when a copy appears.
First to file, and that changes the order of operations
A Chinese company often arrives in Europe with a name it has used at home for years and assumes that use is a right. In Europe it is generally the register that decides. The practical consequence is uncomfortable but simple: the moment your name becomes visible here — a trade show, a catalogue, a marketplace listing — it also becomes available to anyone who files it first.
Three different protections, three different purposes
- The trade mark protects the name you sell under, and the search before filing matters as much as the filing: a name that is unavailable in one European language is unavailable everywhere you intended to use it.
- The registered design protects the shape and appearance, which is often what is actually copied. It is also the protection most often lost by showing the product publicly before filing.
- The patent protects a technical solution, and the honest question comes before the cost question: is there an invention to protect, or is the real asset the design and the name?
Registration is what makes action possible
Protection on paper is worth what you can do with it. A registration is what lets customs hold a suspect consignment at the border, lets a marketplace take a copy down instead of asking you to prove ownership, and gives you something to negotiate with when someone has filed your name in bad faith. Without it, each of those conversations starts from nothing.
We are not a firm of patent and trade mark attorneys, and some of these acts are theirs to perform. What we do is the work that comes before and around: deciding what is worth protecting and where, checking the name across the languages you will actually sell in, briefing the attorney properly, and handling the practical side when a copy turns up online or at a border.
What we do on this side.
Checking it survives Europe
Availability and meaning across the European languages you intend to sell in.
Filing before you are visible
Sequencing the filings around trade shows, launches and first listings.
Protecting what gets copied
Deciding between design, trade mark and patent on the merits, not out of habit.
When a copy appears
Marketplace takedowns, border measures, and what to do about a bad-faith filing.
Questions we get on this.
We have used this name in China for years. Is it not ours in Europe?
Generally it is the register that decides, not prior use elsewhere. The practical consequence is that the moment your name becomes visible in Europe — a trade show, a catalogue, a marketplace listing — it also becomes available to whoever files it first.
Should we file before or after our first European trade show?
Before. A trade show is a public disclosure, and the registered design — which protects the shape and appearance, often the thing actually copied — is the protection most commonly lost by showing a product publicly before filing.
Trade mark, design or patent — which do we need?
They answer different questions. The trade mark protects the name you sell under, the registered design the shape and appearance, the patent a technical solution. The honest question comes before the cost question: is there an invention to protect, or is the real asset the design and the name?
Somebody has filed our name in Europe before us. Is it lost?
Not necessarily — there are routes against a filing made in bad faith. But they are slower, more expensive and less certain than filing first would have been, and they work far better when you can show what you were already doing in Europe. This is the situation the sequencing on this page is meant to avoid.
A copy of our product is on a European marketplace. What can we actually do?
What you can do follows from what you registered. A registration lets a marketplace take the listing down instead of asking you to prove ownership first, and lets customs hold a suspect consignment at the border. Without one, each of those conversations starts from nothing.
Do you act as our trade mark attorney?
No, and some of these acts are theirs to perform. We do the work before and around it: deciding what is worth protecting and where, checking the name across the languages you will actually sell in, briefing the attorney properly, and handling the practical side when a copy turns up online or at a border.
Send us the name, the product and the first European event where it will be seen. The sequence matters more than the budget.