What Is A Trademark Specimen?

A specimen is the proof of use that you submit along with your trademark application to show the Examiner how you are using the mark. It’s important to submit a proper specimen, because if you do it wrong, your trademark application will be rejected. 

The most common problem that I see with specimens is that the use that is shown on the specimen doesn’t match the goods and services that are listed in the trademark application. This could be because the applicant is using the trademark wrongly, or because the applicant filed the application and didn’t properly describe the goods. 

Mis-describing the goods themselves on a trademark application (a preventable but very common mistake by people who don’t know what they are doing) almost always results in the specimen being wrong. Why? Well, because the trademark applicant didn’t describe the goods properly in the trademark application, it means that the description of the goods will not “match” the actual, real-life trademark usage. The usage will be different than the description, because the wrong description was used for the goods. 

This misdescription can be fatal to the trademark application, because once the trademark application is submitted, the description of the goods can’t be materially altered. We can subtract goods and services, but we can’t add or alter the description of goods and services to be something completely different. 

What is the specimen supposed to look like? Well, that depends on the goods listed in the trademark application. But in general, the trademark examiner will be looking at the use submitted by the applicant to ensure that the use shown matches the goods or services claimed in the application. So depending on the goods or services on the application, the specimen will look different. 

For example, if you’re submitting a trademark application for clothing in International Class 025, then you would submit a specimen showing a hangtag for the clothing that has the trademark on it, or perhaps a box or other packaging for the clothing with the trademark applied to the box or packaging. 

If, on the other hand, your claimed goods and services are business consulting services, then those sorts of services don’t have a hangtag. The trademark specimen will look completely different. For consulting services, a proper trademark specimen might be an invoice showing use of the trademark on the invoice. Or it might be a screenshot of a website offering the services. 

The important thing is to have the trademark specimen show use of the trademark in conjunction with the goods or services listed in the trademark application. So long as the trademark examiner can see the trademark properly used with the goods or services listed in the trademark application, this satisfies the requirement that the trademark applicant show “use” of the trademark in commerce. 

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