From the course: Understanding Intellectual Property

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Trademark priority

Trademark priority

From the course: Understanding Intellectual Property

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Trademark priority

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- Trademark Priority. Trademark rights arise from use. US law views this as the most fair way to allow trademarks to function. You don't need to register to have rights. When you use a mark, you start creating rights. However, how do you determine who has rights if there are no requirements for registration? In the US, we go based on the earliest user of the mark. That can have big implications. If you want to open a nationwide restaurant chain, you need to be sure that there are no restaurants in the whole US that use a mark that's similar to the one you want to adopt. Since registration is not required, that means you have to dig around the whole country looking for earlier users. What if you don't know about a prior user and adopt a trademark in a different city or state than the first user? In some cases, you might create your own trademark rights in your area while the other user owns the rights in their area. You could be a good faith junior user and the senior user may not be…

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