What evidence should I collect to document the commercial use of a trademark?

Show the mark as customers encountered it

Keep examples showing how you use the trademark to market or supply particular goods or services. For goods, these might be photographs of products, labels, packaging or shop displays. For services, keep brochures, advertisements, signage or customer documents that show the mark and identify the service offered or supplied.

Preserve the full context: a close-up of a logo alone may not identify the product, service or seller. Keep the wording and design actually used, including earlier versions when branding changes. Separate proposed packaging and campaign mock-ups from material that reached customers.

The USPTO’s specimen guidance illustrates this distinction for US filings: specimens must show actual use, and acceptable examples differ between goods and services. A document useful in your wider evidence file may not qualify as a filing specimen on its own.

Connect the mark to sales and services

Preserve invoices, orders, delivery records and records of services performed. Keep product codes and descriptions that let someone match a transaction to the branded item. If an invoice names only a company or product code, retain a catalogue or product list explaining which mark appeared on the goods sold.

For example, a coffee producer could keep photographs of its branded bags, the product list linking each bag to a stock code, invoices using those codes, and delivery records identifying the destinations. The photographs show the branding; the other documents help establish which products were sold, when and where.

Record quantities or sales values as well as individual transactions. Keep the invoices, orders or accounting records supporting each sales summary, and separate figures by mark, product or service and market where possible. Company-wide turnover may say little about use of a particular trademark. EUIPO’s guidance on commercial documents explains how invoices can help show the timing, frequency and geographical extent of sales.

Keep the dates, markets and businesses clear

For each group of records, note the period covered, the countries or regions concerned, the goods or services, and the business making the sales. Distinguish a campaign’s publication date from the date you saved a copy. Keep advertising placement records or distribution reports alongside the advertisement itself.

Where a distributor, franchisee or licensee uses the mark, identify that business and retain the relevant authorisation, sales reports and any records of quality control. The conditions under which another business’s use counts for the owner vary. For example, Canadian guidance on evidence of use addresses both licensed use and the owner’s control over the goods or services.

Preserve a dated sequence as business continues

Collect records at regular intervals and when products, packaging, services or markets change. Include the earliest available sales evidence and later examples showing continued activity. A practical routine might combine quarterly collections with extra records for launches and major campaigns; this is a record-keeping suggestion, not a legal minimum.

Timestamp the collected files as you preserve them, keeping the originals, certificates and verification data together. For timestamping methods and their limits, see what a digital timestamp establishes.

For the coffee producer, successive timestamped collections could preserve each packaging version alongside the corresponding sales and delivery records. This makes later changes traceable. A timestamp supports when the files existed; the photographs and transaction records provide the evidence of commercial activity. Timestamping an old invoice today does not independently establish that its stated transaction date is correct.

Select evidence for the relevant requirement

Organise the collection by trademark, goods or services, market and period so you can retrieve the relevant records. Keep confidential originals securely; prepare redacted copies separately when disclosure is necessary.

Before submitting evidence, check the country, procedure, period and goods or services it must cover. Applying for registration, keeping a registration in force and defending it against a challenge for non-use may require different documents or declarations. WIPO’s overview explains that protection and application requirements vary between countries. A well-maintained collection gives you material to select from; its legal sufficiency depends on the particular requirement.