What are the collection, preservation and precautions for trademark use evidence
Trademark The significance of evidence of use is to prove the correct use of the trademark, so the evidence materials for trademark use should meet the following requirements:
1. Be able to show the trademark mark used.
2. Can display the goods or services for which the trademark is used.
In trademark-related administrative and judicial practices, the use of a trademark must be reflected by evidence. The evidence of trademark use is the expression of the fact that the trademark is used. Without trademark use, Without evidence, the parties cannot prove the existence of the fact of trademark use.
In practice, it often happens that some trademark owners have used the trademark but failed to submit effective evidence of use because they did not pay attention to preserving original data. As a result, Loss of trademark rights.
In addition, during the foreign-related registration process, the registration management departments of some countries also require the submission of evidence of use, or confirm rights based on the evidence of use in the case of disputes between the two parties. . Therefore, trademark owners, especially small and medium-sized enterprises with less standardized management, must pay more attention to preserving evidence of use.
Preservation of evidence of trademark use
Evidence of trademark use is not readily available, and trademark owners with irregular management cannot even provide evidence of use. More common situations include: the actual trademark logo used is different from the applied trademark; when preserving the evidence of media use for publicity, only the content of the report is collected, and the media in which the report was published and the time of publication are not retained; or the media report is not retained due to excessive reliance on network information. The original only retains the network link; when saving the evidence of use in the advertisement, there is an advertising contract but no advertising invoice and payment voucher, and no advertising facts are retained.In this way, the advertising contract becomes an orphan certificate; when preserving the evidence of market activities, the retained evidence of market activities cannot reflect the applied trademark; when preserving the evidence of exhibition use, the exhibitor list, invitation letters, invoices and other evidence of the exhibition are not retained. , keep only photos of the show, etc.
Therefore, when forming evidence of trademark use, attention should be paid to the following two aspects:
1. Evidence Completeness, accuracy and validity of the content. For example, the contents of bills and documents should be filled in completely and without defects. When issuing invoices, some trademark owners only fill in the product name without filling in the trademark, or fill in the invoice inaccurately or incompletely, and even issue an invoice that is not the trademark owner's own. These errors will lead to the loss of evidence effectiveness, and domestic enterprises should pay special attention to them.
2. Pay attention to the complete collection of evidence chains. The validity of isolated certificates is often not recognized. For example, a separate contract for the sale of goods, if there is no corresponding other evidence to prove that the contract has been performed, even if the contract content is extremely complete, is considered to be of poor validity. However, if there is a contract and there are corresponding payment receipts that are consistent with the content of the contract, there are shipping orders from the supplier that are consistent with the content of the contract, and corresponding warehousing orders from the buyer, then objectively a complete chain of evidence is formed, and each individual If the evidence can corroborate each other, its evidentiary effect will far exceed that of a single contract.
The above is the relevant knowledge compiled by the editor for everyone. If your situation is more complicated, the Legal Savior Network also provides online lawyer consultation services. You are welcome to provide legal consultation.
