Rights that hold up
when someone copies you

National filings, international registrations through Madrid, and the local-script versions foreign owners routinely forget until someone else registers them.

• Clearance search before you commit to a name
• Class and subclass strategy — critical in China, where filing the class alone leaves gaps
• Chinese-character, katakana and Hangul versions filed alongside the Latin mark
• Office actions, refusals and oppositions answered through to registration

PCT national phase entry and direct filings. Claims usually need adapting rather than translating — a literal translation of a US or EU claim set often reads as unclear or overbroad to an Asian examiner.

• National phase entry across the region on a single instruction
• Direct filings for Taiwan, which sits outside the PCT entirely
• Utility models where a full patent is slow, costly or unlikely to grant
• Annuities and local working statements tracked

Product shape and packaging. Faster and cheaper than patents, and often the more useful right against a copycat who changed the internals but kept the look.

• Hague route where the jurisdiction allows it, national route where it doesn't
• Drawing and representation preparation to local standards
• Filing before public disclosure, which most jurisdictions here require
• Coordination with your trademark filings so the packaging is covered twice

Squatter registrations, prior-right conflicts and non-use attacks. Recovering a right always costs more than filing it, but it is frequently possible.

• Opposition against a pending application before it registers
• Invalidation of a registered squatter mark, patent or design
• Non-use cancellation where the holder never traded under the right
• Negotiated assignment where that is faster and cheaper than a fight

A certificate does nothing sitting in a drawer. Recordal with customs is what lets an officer hold a shipment, and it is one of the cheapest steps in the whole portfolio.

• Customs recordal in each jurisdiction where goods move
• Marketplace and platform takedowns
• Cease-and-desist correspondence through local counsel
• Referral to litigation counsel where the matter needs a court

Deadlines are how foreign owners lose rights in this region — a missed use declaration in the Philippines removes a registration outright, and nobody sends a warning to your head office.

• One docket covering trademarks, patents and designs in every jurisdiction
• Renewal and annuity deadlines tracked and chased ahead of time
• Use declarations and working statements prepared where required
• Annual portfolio review: what to drop, what to add, what is exposed