Trade Show and Exhibition Checklist: Pre-Show Filing Sequence, Booth and Display Clearance, Confidentiality and Meeting Records, On-Site Enforcement Procedure, and Post-Show Follow-Up

By Casey Scott McKay · 2025-05-27

A ten-phase working checklist for the intellectual property side of an exhibition programme, sequenced backwards from the show date. Phases one and two set the disclosure review and the filing sequence that must complete before the doors open. Phases three and four clear the booth and its contracts. Phases five and six cover the confidentiality protocol and the enforcement file. Phases seven and eight cover conduct on the floor and what to capture. Phases nine and ten cover the thirty days afterwards and the artefacts built once and reused. Each phase closes with a gate.

IP and Technology > Trademarks | Checklist | Published 27 May 2025 - Updated 18 August 2025 | Casey Scott McKay - marksy.us

How to use this checklist

Run it backwards from the show date, which is the deadline that matters — not the launch date and not the shipping date.

Phases one and two must complete before the doors open and cannot be remedied afterwards. Phases three through six should complete in the month before. Phases seven and eight run during the show. Phase nine runs in the thirty days after. Phase ten is built once and reused at every subsequent show.

The single most consequential item in the whole document is Phase 2: a provisional application filed the week before an exhibition preserves every foreign right, and one filed the week after preserves none.

The doctrinal background is Everything on the Stand Is a Disclosure; the operational treatment with worked engagements is Preparing for a Trade Show; the cluster is assembled in the Trade Show and Exhibition IP Toolkit.

Phase 1. The disclosure review, six months out

[ ] Get on the show planning distribution list, since the review must precede the stand design and the stand design precedes the budget.
[ ] List what the company intends to show, product by product, including anything in a demonstration.
[ ] Add the conference papers and presentations by the company's engineers, which are printed publications and are frequently more enabling than the display.
[ ] Add press releases and website updates timed to the show, which are often earlier than the show itself.
[ ] Add customer pilots and beta deployments running without confidentiality, which are public uses and become offers for sale where a commercial component exists.
[ ] Add requests for quotation sent to manufacturers without confidentiality.
[ ] Add recruitment advertisements describing unannounced products, which happens constantly.
[ ] Add regulatory filings that become public on a schedule the product team does not track.
[ ] Add investor decks and demonstration days where nothing was signed.
[ ] Add employee social media and any livestream or virtual event, which is a permanent, indexed, timestamped, universally available publication.
[ ] State the stakes once, to the business, in plain terms: public display destroys novelty in absolute novelty jurisdictions; the domestic grace period at 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) is a rescue rather than a plan; 35 U.S.C. § 102(a) makes public use prior art; an order form is an offer for sale under Pfaff v. Wells Electronics, Inc. and Helsinn Healthcare S.A. v. Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc.; and confidentiality once spent does not return.
[ ] [Gate] A single list exists covering all ten disclosure channels, not only the stand.

Phase 2. The filing sequence

[ ] Screen every item for patentable subject matter and decide, item by item, whether to file or to hold it back a cycle.
[ ] File provisionals four months out under 35 U.S.C. § 111(b), remembering a provisional is worth only what its compliance with 35 U.S.C. § 112 makes it — one that does not describe what is later claimed provides nothing.
[ ] Do not hurry a provisional into existence the week before. A defective provisional is worse than none because it creates false confidence.
[ ] File design applications before display under 35 U.S.C. § 171 and in the jurisdictions that matter, since registered designs are the most commonly forfeited right in this area and their clocks are short. See Three Ways to Own a Shape and the Design Patent Checklist.
[ ] Clear new names early, because clearance can fail and a name that fails needs replacing before graphics are printed.
[ ] File trademark applications three months out, since the show is where competitors first see the name and first-to-file jurisdictions reward speed. See the International Trademark Toolkit.
[ ] Check exhibition priority provisions where they exist, treating them as a narrow fallback with strict formalities rather than a strategy.
[ ] Complete the disclosure decision log: one row per item, what was filed and when, or the decision not to file with the reason and the person who made it.
[ ] Obtain sign-off from somebody senior on any decision to display something unfiled, because it is a commercial decision with a legal consequence.
[ ] [Gate] Nothing goes on the stand that is not either filed or recorded as a deliberate decision not to file.

Phase 3. Booth and display clearance

[ ] Secure the stand design. Absent an assignment satisfying 17 U.S.C. § 204, or a valid work-for-hire arrangement under 17 U.S.C. § 101, the contractor owns it under 17 U.S.C. § 201. Contract for ownership or a perpetual, transferable, modifiable licence. See Who Owns the Work and the Agency Engagement Checklist.
[ ] Check stock licences for exhibition scope, since many exclude large-format or trade show use.
[ ] Check the music licence and whether the organiser's blanket licence extends to exhibitor stands. Ask in writing.
[ ] Obtain permission for third-party products shown in demonstrations and for customer logos on the wall, most of which are restricted by the customer's own contract.
[ ] Photograph the stand configuration if it is distinctive and used consistently, since it may be trade dress under 15 U.S.C. § 1125 on the reasoning of Two Pesos, Inc. v. Taco Cabana, Inc., subject to functionality under TrafFix Devices, Inc. v. Marketing Displays, Inc.. See Trade Dress and the Functionality Doctrine.
[ ] Review the printed collateral for claims requiring substantiation, since a comparative claim on a handout is an advertising claim.
[ ] [Gate] Every element of the stand has a licence or an assignment, identified before build.

Phase 4. The exhibitor contract

[ ] Route it through legal as a standing rule, since it is signed by whoever books the space and read by nobody.
[ ] Note the infringement warranty, usually unqualified.
[ ] Note the indemnity running to the organiser, which converts a third-party dispute into a contractual exposure.
[ ] Note the summary remedies permitting removal of material, covering of displays, or closure of the stand on complaint, frequently without a determination of the merits.
[ ] Note the licence to the organiser to photograph the stand and use the imagery, sometimes perpetually and sometimes including the exhibitor's marks.
[ ] Note the photography and recording rules, which are enforceable against attendees only through the organiser.
[ ] Note the rules on activity outside the allocated space, which shade into ambush marketing. See The Marketing Nobody Paid For.
[ ] Note the governing law and forum, almost always the organiser's home jurisdiction, which matters when the summary remedy is used against you.
[ ] [Gate] Somebody has read the exhibitor contract before the deposit was paid.

Phase 5. Confidentiality and meeting records

[ ] Put a one-page mutual confidentiality agreement on the stand and instruct staff to use it before any technical discussion.
[ ] Tell the business that an unpapered conversation is not confidential, whatever the parties assume — the prospect shown the unreleased roadmap owes nothing.
[ ] File first for partner and investor conversations, since counterparties there are frequently unwilling to sign and unwillingness is a reason to file rather than a reason to disclose.
[ ] Brief recruiters explicitly not to receive a candidate's current employer's confidential information, since show recruitment conversations are the origin of many later trade secret disputes. See Learning About Your Competitor Lawfully.
[ ] Brief on competitor contact, since a show floor is where competitor conversations most easily become improper and the competition-law questions attach independently.
[ ] Keep a meeting log: who, when, one-line subject, and whether an agreement was signed. A minute per meeting.
[ ] Handle lead capture as data collection, with notices at the point of scanning and the communications rules applied to the follow-up. See Permission to Reach Someone and the Marketing Privacy Compliance Checklist.
[ ] Scan signed agreements on the day, not into a folder that is later mislaid.
[ ] [Gate] No technical disclosure occurs on the stand without a signature or a prior filing.

Phase 6. The on-site enforcement file

[ ] Read the show's complaint procedure before travelling: who hears complaints, where, on what evidence, in what language, and with what right of reply. It is in the exhibitor pack.
[ ] Assemble registration certificates for marks and designs, translated where required.
[ ] Add filing receipts for anything pending and a short written summary of the rights asserted.
[ ] Identify a local contact before travel, since these procedures run in the local language on local timescales and a party without local representation is at a structural disadvantage.
[ ] Check whether local courts near the fairground grant rapid relief during shows, and whether a seizure procedure is available for evidence collection at the stand.
[ ] Consider customs recordation under 19 C.F.R. Part 133, since goods entering for a show are imports and can be stopped before they are unpacked, with 19 U.S.C. § 1337 available for the wider import remedy. See What the Border Asks and Section 337 at the ITC.
[ ] Prepare the defensive side too. Bring your own certificates, brief stand staff to accept any complaint document and say nothing about the merits, and decide in advance what you would cover or remove to keep the stand open while the substance is resolved.
[ ] [Gate] The file is packed and the local contact's number is on a card in somebody's pocket.

Phase 7. Conduct on the floor

[ ] Instruct the team in writing before travel, in three bullet points.
[ ] Permitted: walking the floor, looking, taking notes, collecting brochures, watching demonstrations, asking questions as an identified attendee, photographing where allowed, and attending public presentations.
[ ] Not permitted: misrepresenting identity to obtain a demonstration or document not available to ordinary attendees; entering restricted areas; taking material without permission; recording where prohibited; and inducing staff to disclose confidential information.
[ ] Register truthfully. A false name or company is a misrepresentation and is the most common improper practice at trade shows; registering as a competitor is permitted, and exhibitors may decline to demonstrate.
[ ] Record the source of everything collected, since the value of show intelligence is that its provenance is unimpeachable — which is only true if somebody wrote it down. See the Competitive Intelligence Checklist.
[ ] Brief the stand staff at set-up, fifteen minutes, covering what may be said about unreleased products, when to use the agreement, what to do if a complaint arrives, what to do if a competitor visits, what to do if somebody offers competitor information, how to log meetings, and who to call.
[ ] [Gate] Everyone on the stand and everyone walking the floor has had the briefing.

Phase 8. What to capture during the show

[ ] Dated photographs of the company's own stand, from several angles, showing exactly what was displayed.
[ ] The show catalogue entry for the company and for every competitor of interest, since the catalogue is a dated publication and is frequently the best evidence of when something entered the market.
[ ] Photographs of competitor stands with dates and stand numbers, serving as prior art and as evidence of use.
[ ] The completed meeting log and the scanned confidentiality agreements.
[ ] Copies of every material distributed, since a handout is a publication and the company should know what it published.
[ ] The filing record as at the show date, so a later question about what was protected when is answerable from one document.
[ ] Any complaint made or received, with its outcome.
[ ] Lead capture records with the notices given.
[ ] Photograph a copyist's stand before complaining, since a stand cleared overnight leaves no evidence of what was there.
[ ] [Gate] Eight items in a single dated folder, assembled before the team flies home.

Phase 9. The thirty days after

[ ] File on anything disclosed that now carries a twelve-month domestic clock and no foreign rights, and convert provisionals where the decision has been made.
[ ] Register the marks used for the first time at the show, since the show materials are the first-use evidence and the window before a competitor files is short.
[ ] Pursue anything identified, since a display is durable evidence of an offer for sale and the exhibitor's details are in the catalogue.
[ ] Archive and index the evidence folder, because an unindexed folder is not evidence anybody will find.
[ ] Record provenance for all intelligence collected.
[ ] Run the follow-up within the marketing rules, not outside them.
[ ] Complete the retrospective, half a page: what was shown that should not have been, what was filed too late, what the stand contract did not cover, and what the enforcement file lacked.
[ ] Update the disclosure decision log with the actual outcome against each row.
[ ] [Gate] The retrospective is completed while the show is fresh, not at the next planning meeting.

Phase 10. The artefacts built once

[ ] A standing calendar template running backwards from any show date, with the nine steps and their owners.
[ ] A standard build contract clause assigning the design or granting a broad licence, placed in the company's purchase terms so it reaches photographers and video producers too.
[ ] A short-form mutual confidentiality agreement, one page, printable, taken to every show.
[ ] A meeting log form, in paper and in an application.
[ ] An enforcement file template listing what to assemble and translate per show and jurisdiction.
[ ] A stand staff briefing deck, seven slides, delivered at set-up.
[ ] A capture checklist for the eight items to collect before flying home.
[ ] A retrospective form, half a page.
[ ] [Gate] All eight exist, so next year's programme is an adaptation rather than a reinvention.

Virtual and hybrid events

[ ] Treat a livestream as more consequential than a stand, since it is permanent, indexed, timestamped, unrestricted in audience, and universal in territorial reach.
[ ] Expect the recording to be produced against you by a competitor challenging a later application.
[ ] Note that enforcement is different: no on-site panel, and platform notice procedures that work adequately for copyright and trademark and poorly for design and patent complaints.
[ ] Circulate the confidentiality agreement with the calendar invitation, since a video call rarely pauses for a signature.
[ ] Read the platform terms for content licences and data provisions the physical equivalent never had.
[ ] Apply the same calendar, because a company that manages its physical show carefully and livestreams the same content a week later has achieved nothing.
[ ] [Gate] The virtual event is on the disclosure list alongside the physical one.

Sector adjustments

[ ] Consumer electronics. Launch events, short cycles, fast copying. Design registrations and the enforcement file matter most.
[ ] Machinery and industrial equipment. Long lives, technical audiences, revealing demonstrations. Pre-filing matters more than enforcement.
[ ] Fashion and accessories. Design-led, seasonal, heavily copied. See Copying a Dress.
[ ] Toys and juvenile products. Aggressive copying plus a safety regulatory layer. See Selling to Children.
[ ] Food and beverage. Recipes unprotectable, brands decisive. See You Cannot Own a Recipe.
[ ] Life sciences and medical devices. Promotional claim rules apply on the stand, and disclosure timing interacts with clinical timelines. See The Device and the Approval.
[ ] Software and services. Little to display and much to say, moving risk to statements made on the stand.
[ ] Franchise and dealer expositions. These are offerings, and the disclosure regime applies to what is said. See Operating a Franchise System.
[ ] [Gate] The checklist has been adapted to the sector rather than applied generically.

Three worked applications

Three weeks out with an unfiled product

[ ] Establish what is actually novel in what will be shown, quickly, since the answer determines whether anything can be saved.
[ ] File a provisional immediately if it can be prepared properly, since it preserves every foreign right if it lands before the doors open.
[ ] Remove the item from the display if a proper provisional cannot be prepared in time, because a defective one is worse than none.
[ ] Check the collateral, since the press release and website update may disclose earlier than the show.
[ ] Review the graphic and music licences for exhibition scope, a fast check with a real chance of a finding.
[ ] Book the six-month conversation for next year on the day, while the client can still feel how close this was.

A copy on the floor

[ ] Photograph everything before doing anything: stand, product, signage, catalogue entry.
[ ] Use the on-site procedure the same morning, since a complaint on day three has already lost half the show.
[ ] Produce the documentation: certificate, translation, photographs.
[ ] Run the judicial route in parallel where local courts handle fair-time applications and a seizure procedure exists.
[ ] Record the exhibitor's details from the catalogue for post-show enforcement.
[ ] Check your own stand while you are there, since a complainant sometimes receives a counter-complaint the same afternoon.

The stand the builder owns

[ ] Read the build contract for an assignment satisfying 17 U.S.C. § 204 or a valid work-for-hire arrangement.
[ ] Price the licence, which is usually cheaper than the argument.
[ ] Assess the company's own trade dress position in the overall look, which is independent of who drew it.
[ ] Fix it forward with a standard clause in every build contract.
[ ] Note the pattern, since the same failure recurs with photographers, video producers, and copywriters, and one clause addresses all of them.

Common failures

[ ] The legal review that happened after the stand design was approved. Prevented by Phase 1.
[ ] The product demonstrated eleven months before the application was filed. Prevented by Phase 2.
[ ] The stock image licence that excluded large-format use. Prevented by Phase 3.
[ ] The exhibitor contract signed unread, with its summary closure remedy. Prevented by Phase 4.
[ ] The roadmap shown to a prospect with nothing signed. Prevented by Phase 5.
[ ] The complaint that could not be made because no certificate had been brought. Prevented by Phase 6.
[ ] The team member who registered under a false company name. Prevented by Phase 7.
[ ] The copy that was cleared from the stand overnight, unphotographed. Prevented by Phase 8.
[ ] The mark used first at the show and registered by a competitor three weeks later. Prevented by Phase 9.
[ ] The whole programme reinvented by a new person the following year. Prevented by Phase 10.

The client with no budget

[ ] File a provisional on anything genuinely new before the doors open. The cheapest instrument in the system, preserving everything else.
[ ] Do not display a product you cannot afford to lose the ability to patent, since that is exactly what the display costs.
[ ] Photograph and date what you showed, because the record costs nothing and is the only thing you will have if a larger competitor later claims the idea.
[ ] [Gate] Three actions, achievable in an afternoon by a company of four people, covering most of what a resourced programme achieves.

Questions that arrive, with standing answers

[ ] "If we cover the product until a visitor asks, is it disclosed?" Almost certainly yes. A product available on request is publicly available, and a curtain does not impose confidentiality without a document.
[ ] "What if we only show invited customers?" Better, and still not confidential absent an agreement. Fifty invited attendees with no obligations is a public disclosure.
[ ] "Can we show a non-working mock-up?" Depends what it discloses. The test is what a person skilled in the art would learn from it.
[ ] "We already posted a photograph." Then the clock has already run and the show is not the disclosure event. Establish the earliest disclosure date before planning around the wrong one.
[ ] "Can we buy a competitor's product from their stand?" Yes, if offered for sale, subject to licence and circumvention questions on any software it contains.
[ ] "Can we photograph their stand?" Where photography is permitted, yes. Where prohibited, it is the organiser's rule and breaching it is a poor look in a venue whose procedure you may need yourself.
[ ] "They used our name in their catalogue entry." Read what the entry says. A comparative reference and a false affiliation are different things.
[ ] "Do we need a provisional if we file in three months anyway?" Yes, if the show is first. Three months after a public display is three months too late outside the grace period.
[ ] [Gate] Each of these has a standing written answer, so the escalation owner decides new questions rather than the same eight.

What good looks like

[ ] The next show's display list exists six months out, with a filing decision against every item.
[ ] Every filed item has an application number and a date in the disclosure decision log.
[ ] The stand design is owned or licensed on an identified document.
[ ] The graphic, photographic, and music licences cover exhibition use, verified rather than assumed.
[ ] Confidentiality agreements are on the stand and somebody is authorised to use them.
[ ] The enforcement file is packed and a local contact is identified.
[ ] The last three shows are documented with photographs, catalogue entries, and dates.

Seven statements. A company that can make them treats the exhibition as an instrument — filing on a rhythm the show calendar sets, enforcing on a timescale nothing else offers, and building an evidence file that supports every later claim about what it did first. Most companies can make none of them, which is why the trade show remains the most reliable place in the commercial calendar to lose rights that were never recoverable.

A note on proportion

[ ] A first-time exhibitor needs Phases 1, 2, 5, and the three-item budget list. Ninety minutes of advice covers it.
[ ] A regular exhibitor needs all ten, built once under Phase 10 and adapted annually.
[ ] Never defer Phase 2, since it is the only phase whose failure is irreversible.
[ ] Never defer the Phase 8 photographs, since they cost nothing and are the evidence everything later depends on.
[ ] Treat Phase 6 as conditional on the sector's copying risk, and remember it is also the defensive file.
[ ] [Gate] Client and adviser have agreed in writing which phases are in scope and why the others are not.

The hand-offs

Most trade show failures are hand-off failures rather than analysis failures, so the checklist should name who receives what and when.

[ ] Product to legal, six months out: the display list in outline. Without this the whole calendar collapses.
[ ] Legal to patent counsel, five months out: the items requiring provisionals and designs, with technical material.
[ ] Legal to trademark counsel, five months out: the names requiring clearance, early enough that a failure can be absorbed.
[ ] Legal to marketing, four months out: the filing decisions, expressed as instructions rather than cautions.
[ ] Marketing to legal, three months out: the stand build contract and the asset licences for review.
[ ] Commercial to legal, on receipt: the exhibitor contract, as a standing rule.
[ ] Legal to local counsel, one month out: the enforcement file requirements and the show's procedure.
[ ] Legal to stand team, at set-up: the briefing.
[ ] Stand team to legal, on return: the capture folder and the meeting log.
[ ] [Gate] Each hand-off has a named sender, a named recipient, and a date in the calendar template.

The stand staff briefing, in full

Fifteen minutes at set-up, delivered to everyone who will stand on the stand, covering seven points and a phone number.

[ ] What may be said about the unreleased product, in one sentence they can repeat, with a clear boundary on what follows it. Give them the sentence rather than the principle.
[ ] When to use the confidentiality agreement — before any technical discussion — and where on the stand it is kept.
[ ] What to do if a complaint arrives: accept the document, say nothing about the merits, call the named contact immediately. The person on the stand when a complaint lands is a salesperson who has never seen one.
[ ] What to do if a visitor asks to photograph or record, according to the company's stated position rather than improvised on the spot.
[ ] What to do if a competitor visits. Usually: be polite, demonstrate the public material, decline the deeper conversation, and do not treat the interest as flattering.
[ ] What to do if somebody offers information about a competitor. Decline it, do not read it, and report it that day.
[ ] How to log a meeting, in one line, on the form that is on the stand.
[ ] Who to call, on a card, with a number that answers during show hours in the local time zone.
[ ] [Gate] The briefing happened, in person, before the first visitor.

Evidence habits worth building

The artefacts this checklist produces are outputs. These are the habits that produce them, and they belong to the show team rather than to legal.

[ ] Photograph the completed stand on the morning of day one, before any visitor arrives, from four angles. Two minutes, and it settles every later question about what was displayed.
[ ] Collect two copies of the printed catalogue and keep one unopened, since it is a dated publication and the best evidence available of who offered what and when.
[ ] Log meetings as they end, not at the close of the day when nobody remembers.
[ ] Scan agreements on the stand with a phone, immediately, since paper collected in a folder is paper that goes missing.
[ ] Photograph competitor stands on the first walk, before displays change, with the stand number visible in the frame.
[ ] Keep one copy of every handout the company distributes, since the company should know exactly what it published.
[ ] Note the date and time of any complaint made or received, because the interval between discovery and action is the number that matters.
[ ] Save everything to one dated folder before flying home, since a folder assembled a fortnight later is missing half its contents.
[ ] [Gate] Eight habits, each taking minutes, producing the evidence file the whole programme depends on.

The defensive file

A stand closed on the second morning of a four-day show is a commercial catastrophe reached through a summary procedure with no appeal operating in time, and any exhibitor in a crowded category may be complained about — meritoriously or tactically.

[ ] Assume you may be the respondent, not only the complainant.
[ ] Pack your own certificates for the marks and designs on display, plus filing receipts for anything pending.
[ ] Bring any freedom-to-operate analysis and evidence of independent development for the products shown.
[ ] Read the procedure from the respondent's side: how much notice, what right of reply, and how quickly a decision follows.
[ ] Identify local counsel who can appear the same day.
[ ] Photograph your own stand on the first morning, so a later dispute about what was displayed is answerable from your own record.
[ ] Decide in advance what you would concede — covering one image, withdrawing one demonstration unit — since an exhibitor willing to concede something narrow often keeps the stand open while the substance is resolved, and one that refuses everything invites the summary remedy.
[ ] Brief the stand staff on the response, which is: accept, say nothing, call.
[ ] [Gate] The defensive file is packed alongside the offensive one, and the same folder serves both.

A closing note

Almost nothing in this checklist is difficult, and almost none of it is legal analysis. It is a calendar, a list, a folder, and a briefing.

What makes it hard is that the work must happen months before anybody feels urgency about it, in a process owned by a function that does not report to legal, against a deadline nobody can move. The doctrine is settled; the sequencing is where companies fail.

Which is why the first phase of this checklist is not a legal step at all. It is getting onto a distribution list — and it is, reliably, the intervention that prevents more loss than everything that follows it combined.

The annual review of the programme

[ ] Re-read the calendar template against the coming year's show schedule and assign owners for each hand-off.
[ ] Refresh the enforcement file requirements for each jurisdiction the company will exhibit in, since procedures change.
[ ] Re-check the standard build contract clause is actually in the current purchase terms and reaches photographers and video producers.
[ ] Review the disclosure decision log across shows, since a pattern of repeatedly displaying unfiled items in one category means either the filing budget is wrong or the product cycle is out of step with the show calendar.
[ ] Re-brief the show team, which turns over.
[ ] Confirm the confidentiality agreement is current and that somebody has printed copies.
[ ] Audit last year's capture folders for completeness, since gaps indicate which habit is not sticking.
[ ] Confirm marks first used at last year's shows were registered, and that nothing was left for a competitor to file.
[ ] [Gate] The programme improves annually rather than being reinvented by whoever is responsible this year.
[ ] And re-run the "who is exhibiting" question, since divisions and subsidiaries book stands without telling anyone, and an unbriefed stand is the one that discloses the product nobody knew was being shown.
[ ] [Gate] Every stand the company will occupy this year is on one list, with one owner.

Key Authorities at a Glance

Disclosure rules do the work. 35 U.S.C. § 102(a) makes public use or availability prior art; 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) supplies a twelve-month domestic grace period that does nothing in absolute novelty jurisdictions. The on-sale bar operates on the terms of Pfaff v. Wells Electronics, Inc. and Helsinn Healthcare S.A. v. Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc.. The pre-show instrument is the provisional at 35 U.S.C. § 111(b), worth only what its compliance with 35 U.S.C. § 112 makes it.

Designs run through 35 U.S.C. § 171 and Egyptian Goddess, Inc. v. Swisa, Inc.. Stand trade dress runs through 15 U.S.C. § 1125, Two Pesos, Inc. v. Taco Cabana, Inc., and TrafFix Devices, Inc. v. Marketing Displays, Inc.. Ownership of the stand runs through 17 U.S.C. § 101, § 201, and § 204. Confidentiality is 18 U.S.C. § 1836 and § 1839; border enforcement is 19 C.F.R. Part 133 and 19 U.S.C. § 1337.

| Authority | Phase | | --- | --- | | 35 U.S.C. § 102(a) | 1 — public use and availability | | 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) | 1 — the domestic grace period | | Pfaff v. Wells Electronics, Inc. | 1 — on-sale bar | | Helsinn Healthcare S.A. v. Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc. | 1 — non-public sales still bar | | 35 U.S.C. § 111(b) | 2 — provisional applications | | 35 U.S.C. § 112 | 2 — what makes a provisional worth filing | | 35 U.S.C. § 171 | 2 — design applications before display | | Egyptian Goddess, Inc. v. Swisa, Inc. | 6 — ordinary observer against a copyist | | 17 U.S.C. § 101 | 3 — work made for hire categories | | 17 U.S.C. § 201 | 3 — the designer owns by default | | 17 U.S.C. § 204 | 3 — signed writing for assignment | | 15 U.S.C. § 1125 | 3 — stand trade dress | | Two Pesos, Inc. v. Taco Cabana, Inc. | 3 — inherently distinctive presentation | | TrafFix Devices, Inc. v. Marketing Displays, Inc. | 3 — functionality limit | | 18 U.S.C. § 1836 | 5 — trade secret claim after a show | | 18 U.S.C. § 1839 | 5 — reasonable measures on the stand | | 19 C.F.R. Part 133 | 6 — customs recordation for show imports | | 19 U.S.C. § 1337 | 6 — import remedies |

Further reading is collected at pre-show filing sequence, trade fair complaint procedure, exhibitor contract intellectual property, stand design ownership, and disclosure decision log.