For decades Linde’s first production partners remained his most important ones, such as Maschinenfabrik Augsburg and Gebrüder Sulzer in Winterthur, Switzerland. However, dur to differing patent regulations in each country, the size of the markets and for reasons of caution, the number of license partners within and outside Germany quickly rose, which didn't always appeal to the company's most important executives.
France
In France, after a few detours and false starts, von Linde established a relationship with Satre & Averly of Lyon in 1877, which built the first machine in order to secure the French patent. But after the founding of the Linde Company, shareholder Moritz von Hirsch took over Linde’s patents in France and founded the "Société pour la production de glace et d’air froid d’après le système Linde." Business, however, was unsatisfactory, so von Linde bought the license rights back from this major shareholder in 1890 and awarded them to the CAIL company.
Great Britain
In England von Linde began a short-lived cooperation with brewery equipment manufacturer Robert Morton in 1876, since Morton shortly afterwards switched to a rival product. After fruitless agreements with other partners, a joint venture was finally established in London, the "Linde British Refrigeration Corp." whose shareholders included the Austro-Bavarian Lagerbeer Brewery, the Atlas Engine Works and Linde. The company, which began building Linde machines in England in 1892, was headed by English refrigeration pioneer T. B. Lightfoot.
Belgium / the Netherlands
The entry into the Belgian/Dutch market was not without its problems. Finally in 1886 the Linde Company founded the cold storage company "Société Anonyme des Frigorifères d’Anvers" in Antwerp with some Dutch and Belgian business associates, which at the same time served as the "base for the increasingly important supplier business to Belgium and Holland" (Linde).
Austria-Hungary
The licencing process in Austria-Hungary looked like a multiple-step process until in 1881 Linde’s employee Karl Heimpel established himself as an independent representative in Vienna. After 1890, four machinery factories in Austria-Hungary began production of Linde machines within a short time, and in 1913 fierce competition among the Austrian machine builders was ended by a cartel-like division of the market.
United States
Carl von Linde enjoyed a good start in the United States: His collaboration with the German-speaking brewery equipment manufacturer Fred Wolf from Chicago, which began in 1879, developed smoothly. Wolf first imported refrigeration and vapour machines from Sulzer and in the mid-1880s began his own production of refrigeration machines (see chapter " Milestones").