Knowledge and qualifying employment are separate requirements.
Identify who actually employed the applicant
A commercial relationship may explain exposure to a product without establishing employment by a qualifying organization. Assess the real entities and service history rather than count every year of familiarity as qualifying employment.
Create two timelines: one for exposure to the company’s products as a customer and another for actual employment by a qualifying organization. Contracts, payroll records, tax documents, personnel files, and travel dates should identify when the employment relationship truly began. L-1B requires a continuous qualifying year abroad during the three years before the relevant filing or admission, plus a parent, branch, subsidiary, or affiliate relationship between operating businesses. Separately, explain special knowledge of the company’s products and their international application, or advanced knowledge of its processes or procedures. Customer familiarity may support the knowledge narrative, but it cannot become payroll service retroactively or turn general industry skill into company-specific knowledge.
Hypothetical example: A moisture-sensor technician in Rivière-Éternité serviced one manufacturer’s equipment for two years through an independent dealer, then joined the manufacturer’s Canadian affiliate. The file counts only the later affiliate employment toward the foreign year. Service logs explain his earlier exposure, while internal training records and later project evidence show how his knowledge deepened after hiring. Ownership documents connect the affiliate to the US petitioner. The chronology does not describe dealer invoices as wages or claim the customer period satisfied the employment condition.