How to Secure Effective Evidence at Trade Fairs

For companies considering moving into international markets, trade fairs are a key channel to introduce your product to the new market, expand your visibility and customer base and seek partners for manufacturing, distribution and retail. However, as well as providing business opportunities, trade fairs also pose risks for exhibitors by exposing new products, technology, designs and brands to those who would copy the efforts of others for their own financial gain. In many ways a trade fair can be viewed as a supermarket for local counterfeiters looking for the next great product to copy or brand to appropriate, often to be sold at the same fair that the original product developer would like to exhibit. This reality of counterfeit products being exhibited at trade fairs in China can be surprising to European visitors. This guide aims to explain why evidence of IPR infringement is important, what can be used and how to effectively secure the evidence needed.