Preparing for a Trade Show: A Practitioner's Guide to Filing Timing, Booth Design, On-Site Enforcement, and Confidential Meetings
By Casey Scott McKay ·
A working guide to running the intellectual property side of an exhibition programme. It opens with the coordination problem that causes almost every loss in this area and the three interventions that fix it. It then sets the six-month calendar, the filing sequence that must complete before the doors open, the booth contracts and licences that determine who owns the stand, the meeting protocol for the conversations behind it, and the on-site enforcement file that makes a same-day remedy possible. It closes with what to capture during the show, three worked engagements, and the shorter programme for a client with no budget.
IP and Technology > Trademarks | Guide | Published 29 December 2024 - Updated 6 December 2025 | Casey Scott McKay - marksy.us
The problem is coordination, not doctrine
Almost nothing goes wrong at trade shows because somebody misunderstood the law. It goes wrong because the show is planned by marketing on a twelve-month cycle and reviewed by legal three weeks before the doors open, at which point every decision that mattered has been made.
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