How to Protect Your Intellectual Property Right When You Start Business in China

China's IP laws and regulations are increasingly reflecting international standards. They have made continuous effort to strengthen the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights. However, starting business in China is still challenging, problems like lingering issues with China’s IP legal framework in areas such as trade secrets, uneven enforcement, and significant procedural barriers that frustrate company efforts to protect IP in China. At the same time, counterfeiters and infringes in China still exist. They often exploit procedural loopholes, proactively seek to invalidate legitimate patents and trademarks. So if you don’t adopt preventive measures to protect your IP, you expose your business to unnecessary risks. Here are some common ways:

Register IP in China in Time

IP rights are territorial, that is they only give protection in the countries in which they have been granted or registered. If you are thinking about starting business in China, then you should consider registering your IP rights in China.

So far, many foreign startups still lack awareness in this area. Even though some enterprises have registered trademarks, many details have not been taken into consideration. For example, when registering a trademark, in addition to registering the trademark of the main brand, there should be similar trademarks need registration. In addition to registered trademarks in this category, if necessary, should also be registered in the relevant categories. Even though some companies have their own technology, they don’t protect their own R & D achievements by applying for patents. These are the invisible losses of a company and are only too late to regret.

Carefully Select and Monitor Business Partners

Before signing any contract, you must conduct due diligence on your business partner and distributor regularly. As part of that due diligence, investigate how they view IP, including IP they get through their partners and their own IP.

Always include IP protection clauses in all contracts and agreements. And fully communicate with partners to ensure that both parties understand the contents of the clauses. Once a partner is found to have leaked its core technology to a third party, you can apply for a lawsuit and claim it under the terms of the contract.

Work with Outside IP Service Providers

IP protection is a quite professional work. If the company handles the registration and safeguarding of rights on its own, not only will it be inefficient due to a lack of professionalism, it is also likely to overlook some potential risks. Therefore, for foreign startups, a better way is to find a third-party intellectual property provider such as WTOIP Global, to help you customize the brand strategy of intellectual property. They are a world’s leading entrepreneurial resource-sharing platform with a focus on IP, helping foreign tech startups to start business in China with one-stop intellectual property solution.If you want to expand the China market and safeguard your technology and innovation, just contact us.