My blog post yesterday, Global IP Protection: Why You Need a Strategy, Not Just an Application generated a lot of questions. In an attempt to answer those we received (and those we anticipate receiving), I give you the below FAQs.
If you are manufacturing abroad, expanding internationally, or selling through distributors, your brand is exposed. This FAQ covers the questions companies ask when they want to prevent the expensive IP problems that derail expansion, including blocked market entry, distributor leverage, and counterfeit erosion.
1. What is a global IP strategy, in plain English?
A global IP strategy is a plan for protecting your brand assets that drive revenue, market entry, and valuation in the countries that matter to your business. It covers what you should protect, where you should protect it, when you should file, how you will monitor for problems, and how you will respond when problems appear. The goal is prevention. You want fewer emergencies, fewer surprises, and less leverage for bad faith actors.
2. When should we start building a global IP strategy?
Start before you announce expansion, sign distributors, manufacture abroad, launch cross border ecommerce, or attend major trade shows in the region. If any of those are likely in the next 12 to 24 months, you should be planning now. In many countries, trademark timelines are long, and third parties can move quickly to file first.
3. How do we decide which countries to prioritize first?
Prioritize based on your business exposure. The most common priority countries are where you plan to sell, where you will manufacture, where your suppliers are located, where your distributors operate, and where counterfeit risk is highest. A practical approach is to rank countries by revenue potential, supply chain importance, and likelihood of bad faith filings, then focus filings on the top group first.
4. We are a smaller company. What is the minimum we should do?
At minimum, protect your core brand name in your home country and in any country where you manufacture or rely heavily on suppliers. If you sell online into major foreign markets, you should also consider filing in the countries where meaningful demand exists or where a third party filing could later block your entry. You do not need a massive portfolio on day one, but you do need coverage in the places where a first filer could create expensive problems later. Do not ignore the company in which you manufacture. See Manufacturing in China: China Trademark Registration Should be the FIRST Thing You Do.
5. Why do first to file systems change everything?
In first to file countries (such as China and Vietnam), the party that files first often has the advantage, even if they are not the original brand owner. If you wait until you have a launch date, you may discover that someone else has already filed your mark. That can lead to blocked market entry, expensive cancellation fights, forced rebranding, or negotiations to buy back rights in your own brand name.
6. Should we file if we are not planning to enter that country yet?
Often yes, if the country is likely to become relevant within your planning horizon or if it is a common source of trademark squatting, counterfeiting, or supply chain risk. Filing early is usually cheaper than cleaning up later. The better question is not whether you are selling there next quarter. The better question is whether that country could matter within two to five years, or could be used against you even if you are not selling there directly.
7. How do we stop distributors, manufacturers, or partners from taking our brand?
You prevent it by combining early filings with clean contracting. Ideally, you file your trademarks in the relevant country before the relationship begins. Your agreements should also make ownership explicit, prohibit the other party from registering your marks, require assignment if anything is filed, and define meaningful consequences for breach. If the relationship already exists, you typically want to file as soon as possible and tighten the contract immediately. Trust alone is not a protection plan.
8. What are the most common global IP mistakes you see?
The biggest mistakes tend to be predictable. Companies wait until expansion is imminent, assume a home country registration protects them abroad, let distributors control local filings, fail to protect obvious brand variations, ignore first to file risk, and treat enforcement as one off fire drills. Another common problem is letting IP ownership drift through sloppy licensing, manufacturing, or distribution agreements. These mistakes usually show up later as blocked market entry, counterfeit growth, or expensive disputes to recover rights.
9. What exactly should we file besides the main brand name?
Many companies under protect. At minimum, consider the core word mark, key logos, and high value product or service names. You also want to protect the versions of your brand that you actually use in marketing, because those are the versions third parties will copy. In some markets, defensive filings for local language versions or transliterations can also matter, because customers and counterfeiters will use those names whether you adopt them voluntarily or not. The goal is to file what will be exploited, not what looks nice on paper.
10. Do we need an IP audit? What does that mean in practice?
An international IP audit is a structured review of what you own, what you think you own, and where you are exposed. It typically includes what marks you are using, where they are registered, where coverage is missing, whether registrations match the goods and services you actually sell, and whether your licensing and distribution arrangements create ownership risk. A useful audit ends with a prioritized plan and a budget roadmap.
11. What does monitoring mean in a real business sense?
Monitoring means you have a repeatable way to spot threats early, rather than discovering them after they have grown. For trademarks, monitoring often focuses on new filings that are confusingly similar in your key jurisdictions and classes. For online enforcement, it can include tracking ecommerce listings, domains, and social handles that mimic your branding. Early detection matters because many problems are cheaper to stop when they are still small.
12. How should IP strategy connect to licensing, manufacturing, and distribution deals?
IP strategy is not separate from operational deals. It is what keeps those deals from turning into ownership disputes. Your contracts should reflect your trademark filing plan, define who owns what, restrict registrations by counterparts, require cooperation with enforcement, and align with how your brand will be used in the market. If your agreements and filings are not aligned, you can accidentally create leverage for the other side and invite litigation.
13. What if someone already filed our trademark in a country we need?
You may still have options, but they are rarely quick or cheap. Depending on the jurisdiction and the facts, your choices can include opposition, cancellation, invalidation, non use actions, negotiation, or rebranding. The right approach depends on timing, evidence of bad faith, the goods and services involved, and how urgently you need market entry. The practical lesson is that prevention is usually far less expensive than recovery.
14. Counterfeits are showing up on Amazon and other platforms. What do we do?
Treat platform takedowns as one tool, not the whole plan. Takedowns can reduce immediate harm, but counterfeiters adapt quickly. A durable response usually combines registrations where needed to access platform protection tools, monitoring, a repeatable enforcement workflow, supply chain controls, and escalation paths for repeat offenders. If you are playing whack a mole without tightening the underlying system, you will keep paying for enforcement without reducing the underlying risk.
15. How long does it take to get meaningful IP protection in place?
A workable strategy can be built quickly, but registrations take time. You can usually improve your position early by filing in priority countries and locking down obvious vulnerabilities. The key point is that waiting rarely shortens the clock. Filing establishes priority and reduces the window for bad faith actors to file first.
16. How much does a global IP strategy cost?
Cost depends mainly on how many countries you prioritize and how many marks you need to protect. Those are the controllable variables. The expensive surprises come from late stage emergencies such as oppositions, cancellations, buybacks, and rushed rebrands. A strategy is often the most effective way to make spending predictable and to reduce high cost tail risk.
17. Will investors or acquirers care about our IP protection?
Yes. Investors and buyers care whether your brand can scale without being trapped by local ownership problems, counterfeit erosion, or blocked entry into key markets. A clean, coherent portfolio can reduce perceived risk because it shows the brand is protectable, enforceable, and transferable in the places that matter. A messy portfolio or missing coverage in key markets can slow deals, increase diligence costs, and create bargaining leverage for the other side.
18. What is the best first step if we want to do this correctly?
Start with an international IP audit led by an international IP attorney. This should give you a clear roadmap: identify priority countries and key marks (and gaps), file early where it matters most, align your contracts so ownership stays with you, and set up monitoring and enforcement so you catch problems early.
Ready to build your global IP strategy?
If you are planning international expansion, manufacturing abroad, new distributors, or fundraising in the next 12 to 24 months, you should assume your IP will be tested. The safest time to act is before you announce growth plans and before third parties can position themselves in your target markets. If you want help building a practical global IP strategy, we can help you audit your current position, prioritize jurisdictions, and implement a filing, monitoring, and enforcement plan that fits how your business actually operates.
