Comparative Study the Status of the Right of Priority due to use in the Legal System Governing the Trademarks

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

1 Department of Law, Faculty of Law and Economics, Khomeinishahr Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran

2 Faculty of Law, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran

3 Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Esfahan University, Esfahan, Iran

Abstract

Legal protection of trademarks in first to file systems is subject to registration of trademarks. Yet, the important question is that if a person makes using from the trademark without complying the registration formalities, whether can he/she claim legal protection based on this prior use or not? It should be said that despite the fact that trademark registration creates an exclusive right, it is not possible to completely ignore the prior use of the trademark as well as the reputation achieved by trademarks used in commercial markets and rights of prior users cannot be denied simply because those marks are not registered. The present research tries to analyze the efforts of various legal systems in weighing and adjusting the need for trademark registration on the one hand and the need to protect the rights arising from the prior use and acquired rights of prior users and try to prevent consumers from being misled, and seeks to enumerate the conditions and criteria of applying the right of priority due to use based on the existing legislative and judicial sources of legal systems studied. The authors have considered the verdicts of domestic and foreign courts, the legal texts of countries and international documents.

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Main Subjects

References

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Private Law
Volume 20, Issue 1
Spring & Summer
April 2023
Pages 89-103

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