The Section 44 Route: Paris Convention Priority, Foreign Registrations, and Filing Without Use
By Casey Scott McKay ·
Most American trademark practitioners spend their careers inside a use-based system and then meet a registration that never required any use at all. Section 44 of the Lanham Act lets a qualifying foreign applicant claim a priority date from an earlier foreign filing, and lets it register in the United States on the strength of a home-country registration without proving use here. This article explains both routes, the six-month priority window that makes the first one valuable, and the home-registration requirement that constrains the second. It works through the constraints practitioners underestimate: the bona fide intent requirement that applies with full force, the rule that the American identification cannot exceed the scope of the home registration, and the fact that use becomes mandatory at the first maintenance filing even though it was never required to register. It explains why foreign use creates no American rights, why the Paris Convention does not override the Lanham Act's substantive bars, and why Section 44 registrations are the single largest population of never-used marks on the register.
IP and Technology > Trademarks | Article | Published 14 February 2026 - Updated 23 February 2026 | Casey Scott McKay - marksy.us
Summary. Most American trademark practitioners spend their careers inside a use-based system and then meet a registration that never required any use at all. Section 44 of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1126, lets a qualifying foreign applicant claim a priority date from an earlier foreign filing, and lets it register in the United States on the strength of a home-country registration without proving use here. This article explains both routes, the six-month priority window that makes the first one valuable, and the home-registration requirement that constrains the second. It works through the constraints practitioners underestimate: the bona fide intent requirement that applies with full force, the rule that the American identification cannot exceed the scope of the home registration, and the fact that use becomes mandatory at the first maintenance filing even though it was never required to register. It explains why foreign use creates no American rights, why the Paris Convention does not override the Lanham Act's substantive bars, and why Section 44 registrations are the single largest population of never-used marks on the register.
Keywords: section 44 · 15 usc 1126 · paris convention priority · six month priority window · section 44(d) · section 44(e) · home registration basis · bona fide intent foreign applicant · lane ltd v jackson · honda v winkelmann · scope of goods limitation · telle quelle article 6quinquies · in re rath · person's co v christman · territoriality principle · dual basis filing · section 66(a) madrid · use requirement maintenance · expungement exposure
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