How do I protect my idea when a team in China builds it?

What a standard NDA misses

The risk it covers

A Western NDA is written against disclosure. A China-focused law firm argues the real risk with a factory is that it uses your design itself or goes around you to your customers, and that translating the NDA does not fix that¹.

What they use instead

An NNN agreement: non-disclosure, non-use and non-circumvention. They count non-use as the most important of the three².

Language and law

The same firm drafts in Chinese and English with the Chinese version controlling, and sees strong practical reasons for Chinese law and a court where the factory's assets are². The USPTO's China toolkit says NDAs there should be under Chinese law, in Chinese, with non-use obligations and audit rights³.

Timing

Sign before you share anything important².

The contract binds whoever signs it

Intermediaries

An agreement with a middleman does not bind the factory just because the middleman calls it its factory. The NNN has to be signed by whoever receives your files; a three-party agreement is one way to do that⁴⁵.

With us

Your contract with Anvol, Inc. binds us. We share your files with a partner line only to quote or build, and only under a written confidentiality obligation at least as protective as your NDA. Ask any intermediary, us included, what the factory has signed.

What you own

The project-specific design files, drawings and tooling. What you receive →

Register what you can before you show it

Trademarks

China awards a trademark to the first to file, unlike the US, where use counts. The USPTO advises filing even if you only manufacture in China for export, because a third party can register your mark and have your goods held at the port³.

Patents

China grants a patent to the first applicant⁶, as the US has since 2013⁷. Public disclosure in one country can cost you patentability in others. Design patents run 15 years and utility models 10 in China, and both are generally granted faster than invention patents³.

The order

The USPTO's advice is to secure your IP in China before exploring business relationships there³. The EU's China IP helpdesk says to file before signing with an OEM⁸.

Other steps that help

Split the work

Make the product hard to copy by dividing production and keeping the most valuable designs at home³. It can also raise cost, lead time and quality problems⁹, so save it for products whose value is in the technology.

Keep it secret on purpose

US trade secret law protects information only if the owner took reasonable measures to keep it secret, and reverse engineering a product you sold is not misappropriation¹⁰. China's rules also ask for confidentiality measures³. Once a product ships, assume someone can take it apart.

Get a lawyer when

The design itself is the business and it is easy to copy. Ask about an NNN with the factory and what to register before you share.

Sources

1. Harris Sliwoski, NDAs do not work for China but NNN agreements do, updated 2026-09-30
2. Harris Sliwoski, China NNN agreements: what they do, what they don't, updated 2026-09-30
3. USPTO, China Intellectual Property Rights Toolkit, 2023 edition, pages 3, 11 to 13 and 20 to 24
4. Harris Sliwoski, the RedNote contract lesson, updated 2026-10-01
5. Harris Sliwoski, the Hong Kong intermediary trap, updated 2026-10-01
6. CNIPA, Patent Law of the PRC (2020 amendment, English reference text), Article 9
7. USPTO, first inventor to file final rule, Federal Register, 2013-02-14
8. European Commission China IP SME Helpdesk, IP protection when working with OEMs in China, 2025-02-10
9. Harris Sliwoski via Mondaq, how companies lose their product before they launch, 2026-07-13
10. 18 U.S.C. § 1839, definitions (3) and (6), Cornell LII