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SAINTE-ANNE-DES-PLAINES · L-1B FIELD GUIDE

Can expertise in an older product support an L-1B case?

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THE DIRECT ANSWER

Potentially, if the actual knowledge and proposed duties meet the applicable standard. Explain its present relevance rather than treating the product’s age as decisive.

Describe the present assignment precisely

Show what the applicant would do with that knowledge and why the evidence supports special or advanced organizational knowledge. The qualifying relationship and required foreign employment need separate assessment; a strong historical project does not establish every L condition.

If the answer is a fortnight of orientation, the knowledge is the industry's. The file should identify the claimed special knowledge of the company's product or its application, or the advanced knowledge of its processes and procedures, and show how the employee acquired and will use it. For client-site work, contracts and supervision must show petitioner control rather than labour-for-hire.

The L-1B standard does not impose a universal requirement that knowledge be secret, proprietary or unique. L-1B exists for a transferee whose knowledge is special to the petitioning organization — its own product, its own process, its own equipment or techniques, or an advanced level of knowledge of how that particular company does things.