When a contract-manufacturing relationship ends, the IP question decides whether you keep the brand or lose it. File like the manufacturer might one day be the competitor.
Indian manufacturing companies sit on three IP risks that don’t exist for service businesses: the contract-manufacturer who copies the product after the order ends, the imported counterfeit that comes through the same port the brand exports from, and the OEM relationship where it is unclear at year five who owns the brand.
The right filings are trademark, design and (sometimes) patent. The right contracts are the manufacturing agreement, the IP assignment, the tooling-ownership clause, and the customs recordation.
Three filings cover most of the IP risk on day one. Each is a standalone service and each links to a deeper walkthrough.
Trademark protects the brand name. Design protects the appearance of the product itself — the shape, configuration, pattern. For consumer-facing physical products, both matter.
Filing strategy: trademark in your goods class plus Class 35, design registration for the distinctive product form before launch. Together they cover “they copied my name” and “they copied my product” in one filing pair.
Indian manufacturers often over-think patents. A patent is worth filing when there is a genuinely novel and non-obvious technical contribution — a new mechanism, a new chemical process, a new structural design. Routine improvements rarely clear the Section 3 bar.
When there is real invention, a provisional patent filed before any disclosure (trade show, OEM brief, product launch) preserves novelty for 12 months while the complete specification is drafted.
Once a trademark is registered, the next filing is the Customs IPR recordation. Application is made online to the Office of the Commissioner of Customs. Once recorded, Customs can suspend imports of suspected counterfeit goods at ports and notify you for 14 days to file infringement action. The single most useful filing for any manufacturer who exports or who fears counterfeit imports.
Importing from or exporting through Indian ports? Customs recordation is the filing that stops counterfeits at the border.
WhatsApp our team →Whoever files first. The default position under the Trade Marks Act, 1999 is first-to-file. A well-drafted manufacturing agreement should explicitly assign brand IP to the buyer, but the only failsafe is the buyer filing the trademark in its own name from day one.
Register the trademark, then record it with Indian Customs under the IPR Rules, 2007. Once recorded, Customs can detain suspected counterfeit imports for 14 days for the rights-holder to file action.
Yes, if the product itself has a distinctive shape, configuration or visual pattern. The trademark protects the name; the design protects the product appearance. Both are separate filings under separate statutes.
Whatever the contract says. Without a tooling-ownership clause, the CM typically retains physical possession and disputes ownership. The contract should specify ownership, return on termination, and IP rights over any derivative innovations.