The 2026 World Cup ball does more than score goals. "Trionda" is a compact demonstration of how a physical product is protected from four directions at once.
The four layers
Trademark: the name "Trionda" itself, filed in the classes covering sporting goods, and the manufacturer own marks applied to the surface.
Patent or utility model: the internal panel structure, the bonding technique and any embedded sensor technology, where these are new and involve an inventive step.
Industrial design: the ornamental appearance, the panel geometry and the graphic layout, protected as a design because it is the look rather than the function.
Copyright: the artwork applied to the surface, as an original graphic work.
Why all four
Because each covers a different kind of copying. A competitor could imitate the technical construction without using the name, or copy the artwork without copying the engineering. A single right leaves gaps.
The version that applies to your product
If you manufacture anything physical with a distinctive appearance, you likely need more than a trademark. Industrial designs in Mexico are inexpensive relative to patents, are examined mainly on novelty, and are frequently the most useful right a small manufacturer holds. They must be filed before public disclosure.
Four filings, four clocks
When a product is protected by several figures at once, each one expires on its own schedule, and letting one lapse can unpick the rest.
- Patent. Twenty years from the filing date, non-extendable, with annuities (article 53 of the Mexican Industrial Property Law).
- Utility model. Fifteen years, non-extendable, also with annuities (article 62).
- Industrial design. Five years from filing, renewable for successive equal periods up to twenty-five (article 78). Registrations and renewals are published in the Gazette.
- Trademark. Ten years from the grant, renewable indefinitely while used (article 178), with the declaration of use at the third anniversary (article 233).
The design registration is the one most often lost, because its first deadline arrives in five years and nothing in the process reminds you it exists.