Supplemental Register

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In United States trademark law, the Supplemental Register is the secondary register of trademarks maintained by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. It was established in 1946 by Subchapter II of the Lanham Act, for the purposes of allowing domestic registration of trademarks which do not meet all of the requirements for registration on the Principal Register, so that the holders of such a mark could register it in another country. This was necessary because under the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, foreign registration was not permitted in the absence of domestic registration, and the trademark laws of countries outside the U.S. often have less stringent registration requirements for marks.

The only requirement for registration on the Supplemental Register is that a mark must be capable of distinguishing goods or services (not that it actually serve such a function). Registration on the Supplemental Register does not confer any additional rights on the holder of a mark beyond those provided by common law. Marks registered on the Supplemental Register are not subject to opposition proceedings, but they may be canceled anytime by a court. Holders of such marks are still permitted to sue for trademark infringement.

[edit] References

Merges, Robert P., Menell, Peter S., and Lemley, Mark A. Intellectual Property in the New Technological Age, Third Edition. Aspen Publishers, 2003. ISBN 0-7355-3652-X pp. 591-592.