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... Court affirmed the Ninth Circuit’s ruling and held that a jury should decide whether tacking is available in a jury case. Under the tacking doctrine, a trademark owner is permitted to make certain modifications to its mark over time without losing priority, i.e., the date of first use of the older mark, when there is a dispute with another party as to who used the mark first. This Blog reported about this case just a couple of days before the January 21, 2015 decision. The Court explained that ...

... consumers and the fans of the brand will take the change. Consumer perception is also the key for a legal question. Is the company going to be able to keep all the legal rights to its brand, given the change? Not the least of those rights is the right of priority of use. Put differently, can the brand owner tack the priority of use of its original mark onto its later mark? This depends on a question how big the change was. Is the modernized trademark a natural continuation of the older trademark that ...

... territory. The Opposition Division cannot adduce the economic dimension of the mark from its mere presence on internet blogs or newspapers…. The OHIM decision reminds us of several trademark law principles. First, trademark rights are territorial. Priority of trademark rights in a country depends solely upon priority of use or priority of filing in that specific country, not on priority of use anywhere in the world. Prior use in a foreign nation, no matter how extensive it is, generally does not ...