Tea Rose-Rectanus doctrine

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The Tea Rose-Rectanus doctrine is a rule of United States trademark law that holds that a junior user of a mark that is geographically remote from the senior user of the mark may establish priority over a senior user's claim to the mark in the junior user's area.

The doctrine is named for two early twentieth-century United States Supreme Court cases, Hanover Star Milling Co. v. Metcalf, 240 U.S. 403 (1916) (the "Tea Rose" case), and United Drug Co. v. Theodore Rectanus Co., 248 U.S. 90 (1918).

In the most recent application of the rule, in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Grupo Gigante SA De CV v. Dallo & Co., Inc., 391 F.3d 1088, 1097 (9th Cir. 2004), the court described the rule as follows:

[P]riority of use in one geographic area within the United States does not necessarily suffice to establish priority in another area. Thus, the first user of a mark will not necessarily be able to stop a subsequent user, where the subsequent user is in an area of the country "remote" from the first user's area. The practical effect is that one user may have priority in one area, while another user has priority over the very same mark in a different area. The point of this doctrine is that in the remote area, where no one is likely to know of the earlier user, it is unlikely that consumers would be confused by the second user's use of the mark.

However, note that remote-geographic priority rules only apply where the senior user is relying upon common law trademark rights or has a federal registration that post-dates the junior user's first use. A federal registration will, in most instances, give priority as of the issuance date over the entire U.S. regardless of actual use in any particular location within the country. (See Dawn Donut Co. Inc., v. Hart’s Food Stores Inc.). The principle underlying this doctrine has been codified as part of the Lanham Act, which permits Concurrent use registration where both parties had used the mark in good faith before either party had filed for a federal registration.