Research on Digital Archive Management Practice of Intellectual Property Assets for Cross‑Border DTC Brands

Abstract

With the continuous global business expansion of DTC brands, the scale of overseas intellectual property assets such as overseas trademarks and patents of brands has grown steadily. Survey data show that more than 71% of Chinese outbound DTC brands have carried out multi‑jurisdictional IP layout, and 66.3% have encountered overseas infringement disputes (Liu, Y., & Zhang, H., 2025). Against the backdrop of multi‑jurisdictional operations, traditional local document management modes suffer from drawbacks including scattered materials, difficult ownership traceability, insufficient term control, and inadequate extraterritorial evidence validity. Only 18.4% of enterprises have built structured digital archive systems, which fail to meet the demands for cross‑border IP‑compliant operation and asset appreciation. Based on practical experience in the digital implementation of cross‑border businesses, this paper draws on the whole‑life‑cycle theory of intellectual property and metadata governance theory to explore implementation paths for digital archiving, business trace retention and multi‑dimensional retrieval of DTC brands’ intellectual property, and puts forward hierarchically adapted optimization schemes for digital management. This research provides practical references for outbound DTC brands to standardize IP archive management, guard against cross‑border compliance risks, and revitalize intellectual property assets.