If you manufacture in China, or you are about to, there is one piece of protection worth sorting before the first order goes in. Register your trademark in China. Not because you plan to sell there, but because the moment your brand meets a Chinese supplier, factory or distributor, it is exposed.
This catches good Australian businesses out for a simple reason. Owners assume their Australian trademark travels with them. It does not. Trademark protection is country by country, and an Australian registration gives you nothing in China.
First to file, not first to use
China runs a first-to-file system. The party who files the application first generally gets the rights, and that holds even if someone else has been using the brand for years, in Australia or anywhere else. Use does not win. Filing wins.
The practical risk is direct. If your brand is not registered in China and someone there files it first, perhaps a supplier, perhaps an unrelated party who has spotted it, they can end up holding the rights to your own name in that country. That can mean trouble exporting your goods out of China, and at worst a costly fight to use a brand you created.
There is also a real upside to being registered, beyond defence. Once your trademark is on the register in China, you can record it with Chinese customs, who have the power to stop and seize goods that infringe it. For a brand being copied, that is one of the few enforcement tools that actually bites.
The good news: it is one of the cheapest protections you can buy
Registration anywhere takes time to come through, and China is no different. But the protection runs from the filing, the cost is modest, and the process is well worn. Against the risk of losing control of your own brand in the country where your goods are made, it is one of the highest-value, lowest-cost steps a business can take. Shan Lai, who practised in Beijing for 15 years, puts it simply: this is the first thing anyone going into China should do.
When to file
The timing rule is its own small art. File too early, before you have settled on the brand, and you can waste a registration on a name you drop. Leave it until you are deep into production, and you have left a window for someone else to file first. The safe answer for most businesses is to file once the brand is locked and well before you hand designs, samples or specifications to a supplier. The handover is the moment of exposure, so the registration wants to be in before it.
What to check this week
If you already manufacture in China, or you are lining up a supplier, ask 2 questions. Is the brand registered in China, in the right name, covering the right goods? And was it filed before anything went to the supplier? If the answer to either is no, that is the gap to close, and it is a cheap one to close before it becomes an expensive one.
A brand is often the most valuable thing a business owns. It is worth making sure you still own it in the country where your products are made.
What to do next
If you manufacture in China, or you are about to, it is worth getting your brand protection in place before the first handover, not after a problem. Our team handle exactly this, alongside the supply contracts that sit around it.
Download our free checklist, Buying from, selling to, or manufacturing in China: the legal checklist every Australian business needs, which covers protecting your brand where your goods are made, or book a free call with our legal team and we will take you through what to register and when.
If you have clients who manufacture or source from China, their brand may be exposed without anyone having flagged it. An Australian trademark gives no protection in China, and there the brand belongs to whoever files first. It is a cheap fix and an expensive miss, worth raising before a problem.
Book a call for a client, or a partner meeting to talk through how we help your client base protect their brand offshore.
