[supercat]

Cheeburger Cheeburger has trademarks Billy Goats doesn't and Billy Goats wins ?

I've been curious about that: if someone does business using a particular name, slogan, or other mark and doesn't register a trademark but can show that they've been using the name, slogan, or other mark for longer than someone who registers it or someone similar, what are the legal implications? In the case of patents, prior art can invalidate a patent completely, but in the case of that sort of thing?

As a related example, there's a company whose catalog included hats with various color stripes, but the one pattern that was conspicuously absent was red and white horizontal stripes. Suppose that before Dr. Seuss wrote his famous book about a cat, the company had in fact sold hats with red and white horizontal stripes. Not as being particularly distinct from hats with any other pattern, but had sold them nonetheless. If it could prove that such sales predated Dr. Seuss's book, would it retain the right to sell such hats provided that it avoided any reference to the Cat or other such trademarks?

[Atlas Sneezed]

Cheeburger Cheeburger has trademarks Billy Goats doesn't and Billy Goats wins ?

I've been curious about that: if someone does business using a particular name, slogan, or other mark and doesn't register a trademark but can show that they've been using the name, slogan, or other mark for longer than someone who registers it or someone similar, what are the legal implications?

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Someone that uses a trademark without registering aquires common law trademark rights in the geographic area where they use it. Because they never registered their mark, BG's rights are limited to the 125 mile radius region. But because the other company registered the mark, they get priority in the entire rest of the nation.

A sensible result.



In the case of patents, prior art can invalidate a patent completely, but in the case of that sort of thing?

As a related example, there's a company whose catalog included hats with various color stripes, but the one pattern that was conspicuously absent was red and white horizontal stripes. Suppose that before Dr. Seuss wrote his famous book about a cat, the company had in fact sold hats with red and white horizontal stripes. Not as being particularly distinct from hats with any other pattern, but had sold them nonetheless. If it could prove that such sales predated Dr. Seuss's book, would it retain the right to sell such hats provided that it avoided any reference to the Cat or other such trademarks?