TEYING BUYER GUIDE · UPDATED OCTOBER 6, 2026

How to Protect Your Jewelry Design When Working with a China Factory

A UK jeweler's £55 earrings turned up on Shein for £1.50, and "factory stole my design" is a recurring thread in seller forums. This guide covers what actually protects a design before sampling starts: the NDA, staged file sharing, and the contract terms to settle with the factory.

By Qiu Qiu, Founder and Design Lead at TEYING · October 6, 2026

The short answer: the NDA comes before the sample, not after the quote

Most design leaks in custom jewelry happen in a quiet window: after you send a CAD file to a factory that never earns your order. The fix is a sequence. Sign the NDA before any drawing leaves your computer. Share images in stages, low resolution first. Register the pieces worth registering. And settle exclusivity and mold ownership in writing — those two clauses do more daily work than any filing.

In a case reported by WalesOnline, a UK independent jeweler's £55 earrings turned up on Shein for £1.50, and seller forums carry "factory stole my design" threads going back years. Law firms write about China IP protection constantly. Factory-side guidance is rare.

The NDA: what to sign, when, and what it must say

Timing: before sampling, not before talking

Sales conversations about categories, quantities, and budgets need no NDA. The moment a sketch or CAD is on the table, it does. Ask for the signed copy before you send anything that could be produced from.

What holds up in practice

At TEYING we sign buyer NDAs, and we can issue one when a buyer has no template. The ones that hold up share three traits:

• Two languages, Chinese and English, both signed. A single-language contract leaves one side claiming they never agreed to the other text.
• A clause naming design files — sketches, CAD, renders, photographs — as the buyer's property, and forbidding their use, sharing, or production for anyone else.
• A signatory who can bind the company, not a salesperson's chat message saying "no problem."

Share the design in stages

Full-resolution CAD is the last thing a new factory sees, not the first.

• Stage one: a render or a photo of a comparable piece — enough to quote the work.
• Stage two: watermarked sketches at low resolution, enough to confirm concept and materials.
• Stage three: full CAD and stone settings, after the NDA is signed.

If a file leaks after stage three, you know who holds it. If a buyer never reaches stage three, no factory has production-ready files.

Copyright vs design patent: the honest trade-off

Copyright is automatic — it exists the moment the design is created, with no filing and no fee. Its weakness is enforcement: proving authorship of a small object across borders is slow. A US design patent from the USPTO is the reverse — time and money up front, a registration document at the end. Most small brands reserve design patents for the signature shape they would actually fight over, and lean on copyright plus contracts for everything else.

If you find your design on AliExpress

Alibaba runs an IP Protection Platform (IPP) where rights holders file takedown complaints, and the paperwork matters more than the form. In practice you need to qualify as a rights holder — for many small sellers that means a business license or registration — and you need evidence tying the listing to your design: original CAD files, dated photos, the NDA, the order trail. A complaint built from screenshots alone is weak; the same complaint with your source files attached is not. IPP requirements change over time, so confirm the current rules on the platform's official page before filing.

Choosing a factory that will not resell your design

Two terms do most of the work.

A written exclusivity clause

Ask plainly: the factory will not produce your design, or a close copy, for any other buyer, and will not sell your pieces to third parties. Some factories refuse, especially ones running their own storefronts. Better to hear the refusal during negotiation than to find your pendant on a marketplace six months later.

Mold ownership that lines up

A mold that stays in the factory is a physical copy of your design living in someone else's building. At TEYING, molds belong to the buyer: $50 to $300 per mold, one-time, kept for your reorders and used for no one else's. Buyer-owned molds plus a written exclusivity clause cover both the physical and the legal side.

The following is an illustrative procurement scenario, not a claim about a named customer or a published TEYING order.

A two-person brand sent full CAD to five factories to "compare quotes." Six months later a near-identical design appeared on a marketplace, and the brand had no NDA, no staged release, and no way to prove which factory held the file. The second collection ran differently: NDA first, renders for quotes, full CAD only to the factory that received the order.

If you want quotes without circulating production files, send a render and your quantity through the TEYING quote form, and settle the NDA and exclusivity terms before sampling starts.

FAQ

Does an NDA actually work with a Chinese factory?

A signed bilingual NDA is a real contract, and its first job is setting expectations: factories that intend to copy a design generally avoid signing one. Keep the signed copy, dated files, and payment trail together — that packet is what makes the NDA usable in a dispute.

Is my jewelry design automatically protected by copyright?

Yes. Copyright exists from the moment the design is created, no filing required. The gap is enforcement across borders, which is why contracts and staged sharing carry as much weight as the right itself.

Should I file a design patent before contacting factories?

File only if the piece is worth defending, because design patents take real time and money. Most small brands protect signature pieces that way and rely on the NDA, exclusivity, and copyright for the rest.

What do I need for an Alibaba IPP complaint?

Typically a business license or registration to file as a rights holder, plus evidence tying the listing to your design: original CAD files, dated photos, and the signed NDA. Check the platform's current IPP requirements before filing.

Can I ask a factory to never produce my design for anyone else?

Yes, and put it in writing — exclusivity is a normal term for private-label production. At TEYING exclusivity terms can be written into the order agreement, and molds belong to the buyer.

The design is the one asset in a jewelry business that cannot be reordered. Send a render first through the TEYING quote form, and ask for the NDA, the exclusivity clause, and the mold terms before anything else moves.