What records should I keep when sharing designs or specifications with a manufacturer?

Separate quotation, sampling and production

A supplier may need different information at each stage. Record what each package is for: estimating cost, making a prototype, testing a process or producing an agreed order. Do not rely on a file named “final” to explain which stage it authorises.

For each package, preserve the exact drawings, CAD exports, patterns, tolerances, bills of materials and specifications you provide. Include referenced attachments and identify their revisions. Keep the covering message, the recipient details and any acknowledgement connecting that supplier to that package.

For physical samples, assign an identifier and retain photographs, measurements and dispatch or handover records. If a sample changes, record the change and its relationship to the relevant drawing. A photograph of a sample is useful context, but is not a substitute for records of dimensions, materials or functional tests.

Connect the package to its permitted use

Keep the NDA and the relevant quotation, development or manufacturing agreement. Record the purpose for which the supplier can use the material and the conditions for involving another factory, subcontractor or consultant.

WIPO’s guidance on external sharing specifically includes manufacturing and outsourced work. Its general recommendation is to combine appropriate agreements with practical measures to protect confidential information.

Preserve written clarifications about matters such as sample quantities, production approval, use of tooling and return or retention of materials. An NDA is not necessarily the document that settles all these issues. If the commercial terms leave an important point open, record the unresolved question before proceeding.

Keep supplier changes and your approvals distinct

Manufacturing often changes a design. A supplier may adjust a seam, alter a mould or propose a different tolerance. Keep the proposal, its author, the reason, the files affected and the decision made.

Suppose a supplier recommends a larger internal radius to avoid cracking. Preserve the original drawing, the supplier’s marked-up proposal, your response and the revised drawing released for production. This makes it possible to distinguish a supplier suggestion from an approved change and from an unauthorised deviation.

Do not treat approval of a technical change as an automatic transfer of rights in it. Keep the contractual provisions and contribution records needed to assess who may use the improvement. WIPO’s collaboration guidance distinguishes pre-existing information from results created during joint work.

Preserve the version history through production

When a revision replaces an earlier package, identify the replacement explicitly and retain the earlier one. Ask the supplier to acknowledge which revision it will use. Connect sample approvals, inspection reports and production orders to that reference rather than to a changing shared folder.

Save evidence of agreed onward disclosures and the records received from subcontractors. At the end of the relationship, document access changes and the agreed handling of drawings, samples, tooling and retained copies. Keep records you are entitled or required to retain; do not assume a termination means everything can immediately be destroyed.

Use digital timestamps at key manufacturing stages

A digital timestamp gives you independently verifiable evidence that particular files existed by a given time. Before sending a design to a manufacturer, timestamp the exact drawings and specifications you intend to share. This establishes a dated reference for the design before the supplier begins working on it, without requiring you to make it public.

Create further timestamped records at meaningful stages: a supplier’s proposed modification, an approved sample or the package released for production. In the example above, the original drawing and the revised drawing with the larger internal radius would each have their own dated record. Keep the supplier’s proposal and your approval connected to the relevant versions.

Retain the exact files and their certificates alongside the messages, acknowledgements and agreements. Together, they help explain which design existed at each stage, which version the manufacturer received and what you authorised. For the underlying mechanism, see What does a digital timestamp establish?.

These records can matter long after production. From first sketch to final collection tells how timestamped design files helped a fashion house win a dispute over copied garments. The evidence was useful because it had been preserved before the dispute arose.