T.M.E.P. § 904.07
Package Inserts as Specimens for Trademarks

Executive summary:

This document contains one section of the Trademark Manual of Examining Procedure (the "TMEP"), Fourth Edition (April 2005). This page was last updated in June 2007. You may return to one either the section index, or to the key word index. If you wish to search the TMEP, simply use the search box that appears on the bottom of every page of BitLaw--be sure to restrict your search to the TMEP in the pop-up list.

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904.07 Package Inserts as Specimens for Trademarks

If material inserted in a package with the goods is merely advertising material, then it is not acceptable as a specimen of use on or in connection with the goods. Material that is only advertising does not necessarily cease to be advertising because it is placed inside a package.

Materials such as invoices, announcements, order forms, bills of lading, leaflets, brochures, printed advertising material, circulars, publicity releases, and the like, are not acceptable specimens to show use on goods. See In re Bright of America, Inc., 205 USPQ 63 (TTAB 1979).

However, if printed matter included with the goods functions as a part of the goods, such as a manual that is part of a kit for assembling the product, then placement of the mark on that printed matter does show use on the goods. In re Ultraflight Inc., 221 USPQ 903, 906 (TTAB 1984) ("We believe the instruction manual is as much a part of applicant's goods as are the various parts that are used to build the gliders. Application of the mark to the manual of assembly instructions, then, must be considered affixation to the goods.").