15 USC Chapter 22 - TRADEMARKS

There are 2 Updates Pending. Select the tab below to view.

USCPrelim is a preliminary release and may be subject to further revision before it is released again as a final version.

Current through Pub. L. 113-9. (See Public Laws for the current Congress.)

prev | next

SUBCHAPTER I—THE PRINCIPAL REGISTER Sec. 1051. Application for registration; verification. 1052. Trademarks registrable on principal register; concurrent registration. 1053. Service marks registrable. 1054. Collective marks and certification marks registrable. 1055. Use by related companies affecting validity and registration. 1056. Disclaimer of unregistrable matter. 1057. Certificates of registration. 1058. Duration, affidavits and fees. 1059. Renewal of registration. 1060. Assignment. 1061. Execution of acknowledgments and verifications. 1062. Publication. 1063. Opposition to registration. 1064. Cancellation of registration. 1065. Incontestability of right to use mark under certain conditions. 1066. Interference; declaration by Director. 1067. Interference, opposition, and proceedings for concurrent use registration or for cancellation; notice; Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. 1068. Action of Director in interference, opposition, and proceedings for concurrent use registration or for cancellation. 1069. Application of equitable principles in inter partes proceedings. 1070. Appeals to Trademark Trial and Appeal Board from decisions of examiners. 1071. Appeal to courts. 1072. Registration as constructive notice of claim of ownership. SUBCHAPTER II—THE SUPPLEMENTAL REGISTER 1091. Supplemental register. 1092. Publication; not subject to opposition; cancellation. 1093. Registration certificates for marks on principal and supplemental registers to be different. 1094. Provisions of chapter applicable to registrations on supplemental register. 1095. Registration on principal register not precluded. 1096. Registration on supplemental register not used to stop importations. SUBCHAPTER III—GENERAL PROVISIONS 1111. Notice of registration; display with mark; recovery of profits and damages in infringement suit. 1112. Classification of goods and services; registration in plurality of classes. 1113. Fees. 1114. Remedies; infringement; innocent infringement by printers and publishers. 1115. Registration on principal register as evidence of exclusive right to use mark; defenses. 1116. Injunctive relief. 1117. Recovery for violation of rights. 1118. Destruction of infringing articles. 1119. Power of court over registration. 1120. Civil liability for false or fraudulent registration. 1121. Jurisdiction of Federal courts; State and local requirements that registered trademarks be altered or displayed differently; prohibition. 1121a. Transferred. 1122. Liability of United States and States, and instrumentalities and officials thereof. 1123. Rules and regulations for conduct of proceedings in Patent and Trademark Office. 1124. Importation of goods bearing infringing marks or names forbidden. 1125. False designations of origin, false descriptions, and dilution forbidden. 1126. International conventions. 1127. Construction and definitions; intent of chapter. 1128. Repealed. 1129. Transferred. SUBCHAPTER IV—THE MADRID PROTOCOL 1141. Definitions. 1141a. International applications based on United States applications or registrations. 1141b. Certification of the international application. 1141c. Restriction, abandonment, cancellation, or expiration of a basic application or basic registration. 1141d. Request for extension of protection subsequent to international registration. 1141e. Extension of protection of an international registration to the United States under the Madrid Protocol. 1141f. Effect of filing a request for extension of protection of an international registration to the United States. 1141g. Right of priority for request for extension of protection to the United States. 1141h. Examination of and opposition to request for extension of protection; notification of refusal. 1141i. Effect of extension of protection. 1141j. Dependence of extension of protection to the United States on the underlying international registration. 1141k. Duration, affidavits and fees. 1141l. Assignment of an extension of protection. 1141m. Incontestability. 1141n. Rights of extension of protection.

Effective Date

This chapter, act July 5, 1946, ch. 540, 60 Stat. 427, became effective one year from July 5, 1946, and repealed chapter 3 of this title as of that date. See notes under section 1051 of this title.

Prior Laws

The Trade-Mark Act of 1905 superseded the Trade-Mark Act of Mar. 3, 1881, ch. 138, 21 Stat. 502, entitled “An Act to authorize the registration of trade-marks and protect the same,” and also act Aug. 5, 1882, ch. 393, 22 Stat. 298, entitled “An Act relating to the registration of trade marks”. Former section 109 of this title repealed all inconsistent acts and parts of acts, except so far as they might apply to certificates of registration issued under the Trade-Mark Act of Mar. 3, 1881, ch. 138, and act Aug. 5, 1882, ch. 393.

The table below lists the classification updates, since Jan. 3, 2012, for the contained sections. If there are multiple sections, they are presented in section number order (original document order).

The most recent Classification Table update that we have noticed was Wednesday, May 29, 2013

An empty table indicates that we see no relevant changes listed in the classification tables. If you suspect that our system may be missing something, please double-check with the Office of the Law Revision Counsel.

How To Use

Multiple entries for a section are listed most recent first, within the section.

The Session Year indicates which session of Congress was responsible for the changes classified. The Congress number forms the first part of the Public Law number; each Congress has two sessions.

Abbreviations used in the Description of Change column:

An empty field implies a standard amendment.
"new" means a new section or new note, or all new text of an existing section or note.
"nt" means note.
"nt [tbl]" means note [table].
"prec" means preceding.
"fr" means a transfer from another section.
"to" means a transfer to another section.
"omitted" means the section is omitted.
"repealed" means the section is repealed.
"nt ed change" and "ed change" - See the Editorial Classification Change Table [pdf].

The Public Law field is linked to the development of the law in the Thomas system at the Library of Congress.

The Statutes at Large field is linked to the text of the law, in the context of its volume of the Statutes at Large, at the Government Printing Office. Please note that it takes a while for these pages to get posted, so for very recent legislation, you need to look at the "enrolled" version at the Thomas site.

The Statutes at Large references have been rendered in the format used as page numbers in the Public Law web pages to which we link, to facilitate copy-paste into browser "find on this (web) page" tools. We are still working on a more direct link facility.

For serious comparison work, we suggest copying all or a portion of the Public Law text into your favorite text editor, for convenient content traversal and window control.

Sections with change type "new" are a special case, still under development. All are now listed, at the title level only.

You will find that occassionally a specific update you notice in a Public Law listed in a classification table will already have made it into the Code. We assume this is an artifact of the LRC edit process. The LII does not edit the LRC content.

top

General Reference

Refer to the LRC (Law Revision Council) for explanations about the US Code from the folks who put it all together.

You can look for information about what it is and is not, which titles are positive law, the schedule of Supplements, etc. Under download you can find the source data we use here (GPO locator files), as well as, PDF files that look just like the paper books (these may be rather large).

Refer to the Thomas site for changes that have not yet made it into the classification tables.

15 USC	Description of Change	Session Year	Public Law	Statutes at Large
§ 1125		2012	112-190 [Sec.] 1(a)	126 Stat. 1436
§ 1125	nt new	2012	112-190 [Sec.] 1(b)	126 Stat. 1436

LII has no control over and does not endorse any external Internet site that contains links to or references LII.

15 USC Chapter 22 - TRADEMARKS

U.S. Code Toolbox

Law about... Articles from Wex

Get Involved

Find a Lawyer