U.S. Trademark Filing Checklist for Foreign Firms

• —Confirm the exact legal owner. Do not default to a distributor, U.S. subsidiary, director, or the referring firm unless that party actually owns the mark.
• —Provide the owner's true domicile or headquarters street address. A post-office box or care-of address will generally not establish domicile.
• —Confirm the mark format: standard characters, design or stylized, color claim, sound, or other special form.
• —Give the exact commercial scope of the goods and services, and flag any wording that must not be narrowed without client approval.
• —Identify the intended filing basis for each class, with the supporting facts and documents.
• —List every priority, response, opposition, statement-of-use, and maintenance deadline in both local time and U.S. Eastern Time.

• —A U.S. priority claim must generally be asserted within six months of the qualifying foreign application filing date.
• —Provide foreign country, filing date, application number, owner, mark, and goods and services.
• —Confirm whether an earlier foreign application for the same mark and goods may affect the claim.
• —Remember that Section 44(d) is a priority basis and not itself a basis for registration.

USPTO source ↗

• —Provide the official registration certificate or office-issued document showing owner, mark, and goods and services.
• —Confirm the registration remains in force.
• —Provide a translation signed by the translator if the document is not in English.
• —Confirm the registration is from the applicant's country of origin.

USPTO source ↗

• —For Section 1(a), provide actual U.S. use-in-commerce dates and genuine specimens for each class.
• —For Section 1(b), confirm a bona fide intent to use the mark in U.S. commerce. Specimens come later, with an allegation of use.
• —For webpage specimens, preserve the URL and the date accessed or printed.
• —Do not submit mockups, printer proofs, digitally altered images, or anything created solely to manufacture filing evidence.

USPTO source ↗

• —A foreign-domiciled Section 66(a) applicant must appoint U.S.-licensed counsel to respond to a provisional refusal.
• —The response period is generally six months from the USPTO issue date, and the optional three-month extension does not apply.
• —Send the full WIPO and USPTO refusal, the current identification, owner information, and any related foreign prosecution history.

USPTO source ↗

• —Wrong owner or entity type
• —Incomplete domicile information
• —Overbroad or unclear goods and services
• —Free-form identification language where Trademark ID Manual wording would serve, which carries an avoidable per-class surcharge
• —Unverified specimens or dates of use
• —Late priority or response instructions
• —Assuming a foreign registration makes U.S. registrability automatic
• —Credential sharing, or filing through a U.S. attorney's account without that attorney's direct review

This is general information about U.S. procedure, not advice on your matter. It does not create an attorney-client relationship, and it does not account for facts specific to a particular applicant, mark, or record.