Concurrent Use and Consent Agreement Checklist: Territory, Conditions, and Filing

By Casey Scott McKay · 2024-08-20

Fourteen phases covering the three instruments people confuse with one another - the concurrent use registration, the consent agreement filed to overcome a refusal, and the private coexistence agreement. Phase one is a twenty-minute screen that tells you which of the three you actually need and whether the client is eligible for any of them. The territorial phases supply model description language in both the inclusive and exclusive forms, the units the Board will accept, and the evidence file that proves a trade area. The consent phases supply the eight elements examiners credit after Bay State Brewing and the two that make a naked consent worthless. The drafting phases cover the online conduct terms, joint enforcement clause, and confusion protocol that every modern agreement needs and most omit. One invented matter, Corvid Roasting v. Corvid Coffee Roasters, runs throughout.

IP and Technology > Trademarks | Checklist | Published 20 August 2024 - Updated 26 December 2024 | Casey Scott McKay - marksy.us

Summary. Fourteen phases covering the three instruments people confuse with one another — the concurrent use registration, the consent agreement filed to overcome a refusal, and the private coexistence agreement. Phase one is a twenty-minute screen that tells you which of the three you actually need and whether the client is eligible for any of them. The territorial phases supply model description language in both the inclusive and exclusive forms, the units the Board will accept, and the evidence file that proves a trade area. The consent phases supply the eight elements examiners credit after Bay State Brewing and the two that make a naked consent worthless. The drafting phases cover the online conduct terms, joint enforcement clause, and confusion protocol that every modern agreement needs and most omit. One invented matter, Corvid Roasting v. Corvid Coffee Roasters, runs throughout.

Keywords: concurrent use checklist · consent agreement checklist · coexistence agreement checklist · jurisdictional prerequisites 2.99 · use prior to filing date · territorial description drafting · trade area evidence · zip code sales analysis · good faith adoption file · weiner king factors · du pont consent factor · bay state brewing · naked consent · online conduct terms · geo-targeted advertising restriction · marketplace listing limits · joint enforcement clause · confusion protocol · successors and assigns · section 8 use within territory

What this checklist is for

This is the working document for two businesses that both have a legitimate claim to the same mark. It does not re-teach the doctrine. If you cannot say in one sentence why a concurrent use registration is a different instrument from a consent agreement, read Two Owners, One Mark first. The reasoning behind each box — why prerequisite one eliminates most applicants, why the ZIP-code map should set the territorial ask, why the online terms matter more than the county line — is in Bringing a Concurrent Use Proceeding. This document tells you what to do, in order.

Who should use it. Counsel for a long-standing local business that just discovered a national registrant; counsel for the registrant that just discovered the local business; prosecution counsel holding a Section 2(d) refusal where a consent might be obtainable; and transactional counsel drafting a coexistence agreement that has to survive twenty years and two changes of ownership.

What you'll need before you start. TSDR records and full file histories for every application and registration owned by each party, including predecessors; each party's first-use and interstate-use documents; each party's sales data with customer geography, ideally by ZIP code and year; each party's advertising placements and their reach; the mark-adoption and clearance files; any prior correspondence between the parties; and, if a refusal is outstanding, the office action.

The worked matter. Corvid Roasting Co. — Bellingham, Washington, coffee under CORVID since 2004, one café plus wholesale across Whatcom and Skagit counties, $3.2 million revenue, no federal registration. Corvid Coffee Roasters, LLC — Asheville, North Carolina, started 2011 with no knowledge of the Washington company, filed 2014, registered 2015, now eleven Southeast locations plus national e-commerce, $28 million revenue. In 2024 Asheville signs a Pacific Northwest grocery distribution deal and the parties discover each other.

| Phase | What you accomplish | Typical elapsed time | |---|---|---| | 1 | Pick the right instrument | 20 minutes | | 2 | Test the four jurisdictional prerequisites | 1-3 days | | 3 | Build the good-faith file | 1-2 weeks | | 4 | Build the trade-area evidence file | 4-8 weeks | | 5 | Draw the map the evidence supports | 1-2 weeks | | 6 | Draft the territorial description | 1-2 weeks | | 7 | File, or amend to seek concurrent use | 2-4 weeks | | 8 | Run the proceeding, if contested | 2-3 years | | 9 | Negotiate the map instead | 3-8 months | | 10 | Draft the online conduct terms | 2-4 weeks | | 11 | Draft the confusion protocol | 1-2 weeks | | 12 | Draft enforcement, assignment, and exit terms | 1-2 weeks | | 13 | Build a consent that survives examination | 2-4 weeks | | 14 | Administer the arrangement | annually |

Phase 1 — Pick the right instrument

[ ] Answer one question: what problem are you solving?
- Two legitimate territorial owners, both want registrations. → Concurrent use registration. 15 U.S.C. § 1052(d) proviso; 37 C.F.R. § 2.99.
- A § 2(d) refusal you want withdrawn. → Consent agreement, filed in the application. In re E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., 476 F.2d 1357, 1361 (C.C.P.A. 1973).
- Two parties who want to define how they will operate, with no filing. → Coexistence agreement.
- Trap. These are three instruments solving three problems, and clients routinely ask for one while describing another. A client who says "we'll do a coexistence agreement" when the real issue is a refusal needs a consent; a client who says "we'll get consent" when both parties have territorial rights may need a concurrent use proceeding.
[ ] Check whether the parties are actually related companies, in which case there may be one owner rather than two. 15 U.S.C. § 1055.
- Why. Family businesses that split, former franchisees, and distributors who registered in their own name present ownership problems, not territorial ones, and the analysis is different. See Whose Brand Is It? and When a Trademark License Becomes a Franchise.
[ ] Price all three paths for the client before recommending one.

Phase 2 — Test the four jurisdictional prerequisites

[ ] Prerequisite one: use in commerce prior to the other party's earliest filing date.
- Authority. In re Beatrice Foods Co., 429 F.2d 1042, 1044-45 (C.C.P.A. 1970); 15 U.S.C. § 1057(c).
- How. Pull every TSDR record for the other party and every predecessor; note the earliest filing date. Then find your client's earliest documented interstate use: an out-of-state invoice, a shipping record, an interstate advertisement, a cross-border wholesale account.
- Trap. This eliminates most would-be applicants and it takes twenty minutes to test. Practitioners who skip it spend months on a case constructive use forecloses.
[ ] Prerequisite two: a specified territory, goods or services, and mode of use, with the other parties named.
[ ] Prerequisite three: no likelihood of confusion in the restricted areas.
[ ] Prerequisite four: good faith adoption without knowledge of the other party's use.
[ ] If prerequisite one fails, check the two exception routes: a final determination by a court of competent jurisdiction, or a concurrent use agreement. 15 U.S.C. § 1052(d).

Corvid, Phase 2. Asheville's earliest filing date is 2014. Bellingham's earliest interstate use is a 2005 wholesale shipment to a Portland grocer, with a 2006 invoice to a British Columbia importer. Prerequisite one is satisfied by nine years.

Phase 3 — Build the good-faith file

[ ] Collect the mark-adoption documents: naming sessions, candidate lists, the reasoning, and the date.
[ ] Collect any clearance search run at adoption and note what it showed.
- Why. A search that did not surface the other party supports good faith. A search that did, followed by adoption anyway, ends the claim. See Trademark Clearance Searching.
[ ] Document the client's isolation from the other party's market at adoption: no operations, advertising, trade press overlap, shared suppliers, or trade shows.
[ ] Take the founder's declaration now, while memory is fresh and the witness is available.
- Trap. A good-faith case resting on a deceased or unlocatable founder's recollection is a weak one. Take it early, by declaration.
[ ] Check for a layered delay problem: did the client discover the other party years ago and do nothing?
- See. Waiting Too Long: Laches, Acquiescence, and Estoppel in Trademark Law; Delay Defense Checklist.

Phase 4 — Build the trade-area evidence file

[ ] Customer address data by ZIP code, aggregated over several years, from the point-of-sale or e-commerce system.
- Why. This is the single most useful exhibit in the practice, and most businesses already have the data. A heat map built from it outperforms any declaration.
[ ] Wholesale and distribution account locations, with volumes.
[ ] Advertising placements with documented reach — circulation areas, station coverage maps, billboard locations.
[ ] Delivery and shipping records by destination.
[ ] Third-party recognition by market: media coverage, awards, reviews, local publication mentions.
[ ] Trade show and event participation, with attendee geography.
[ ] Employee and supplier locations.
[ ] Awareness survey evidence, only where the disputed territory justifies the $60,000-plus cost.
- See. Consumer Surveys in Trademark Cases; Trademark Survey Design and Challenge Checklist.
[ ] Assemble the same categories for the other party, from public sources and later from discovery, so the two records are comparable.
[ ] Search the whole coexistence period for actual confusion, and document the search itself.
- Why. Absence of confusion over years of coexistence is genuinely probative that a restriction will work — which is prerequisite three. But "we are unaware of any confusion" is not evidence of a search. Describe the search: which systems, which date range, which search terms.
- See. Common-Law Priority Evidence Checklist.

Phase 5 — Draw the map the evidence supports

[ ] Produce one map: the claimed territory outlined, overlaid with ZIP-code sales data, plus a revenue-by-county-and-year table.
[ ] Set the ask from the data, plus a defensible margin — not from what the client wishes it had.
- Trap. Claiming a region and receiving a county is worse than claiming and receiving the county, because the overreach costs credibility on every Weiner King factor. Weiner King, Inc. v. Wiener King Corp., 615 F.2d 512, 522-23 (C.C.P.A. 1980).
[ ] Test the ask against the five allocation factors before finalizing: previous business activity; previous expansion or its absence; dominance of contiguous areas; presently planned expansion; and presence in the area sought.
[ ] Assemble the expansion evidence, if any, in contemporaneous documents: signed leases or letters of intent, financing commitments, executed distribution agreements, hiring for a named market, and dated board or investor materials.
- Trap. Testimony that the company "always intended to expand" is worth nothing. Only documents dated before the dispute count.

Corvid, Phase 5. The ZIP-code analysis shows 91% of revenue inside Whatcom and Skagit counties, with the remainder scattered across western Washington and one Portland account. Counsel recommends claiming those two counties, with a fallback argument for the four-county northwestern Washington area, and abandoning the client's initial request for "the Pacific Northwest."

Phase 6 — Draft the territorial description

[ ] Draft in units the Board uses: states, counties, metropolitan statistical areas, or a named city plus a stated radius.
- Trap. "The Pacific Northwest," "our natural trade area," and "the areas where the mark is recognized" are not administrable and will not be accepted.
[ ] Draft both descriptions, and confirm they are exact complements.
- Inclusive form. The registration is restricted to the area comprising Whatcom County and Skagit County, in the State of Washington.
- Exclusive form. The registration is restricted to the area comprising the entire United States except Whatcom County and Skagit County, in the State of Washington.
- Why. An overlap defeats prerequisite three. A gap creates a zone of uncertainty that will produce a dispute.
[ ] Consider a mode-of-use restriction alongside or instead of geography, which the proviso expressly permits — retail versus wholesale, direct-to-consumer versus food service, one class of trade versus another.
- Why. In a national e-commerce world, a channel restriction is frequently more meaningful than a county line.
[ ] Cross-reference the agreement's online conduct terms in the description where the arrangement depends on them.

Phase 7 — File, or amend to seek concurrent use

[ ] File a use-based application under 15 U.S.C. § 1051(a) with the concurrent use claim, the territorial statement, and the named parties. 37 C.F.R. § 2.99; TBMP § 1103.
[ ] Consider amending an existing application instead, where a § 2(d) refusal or an opposition is already pending.
- Why. The amendment converts the question from can this register at all to where can this register. It is a genuine strategic option and it is badly underused.
[ ] Where the other party consents, file the negotiated agreement, the consent, and matching descriptions together.
- Why. The consented track resolves on the papers in six to fifteen months instead of two to three years.

Phase 8 — Run the proceeding, if contested

[ ] Calendar the Board's institution order dates and treat it as a full inter partes matter.
[ ] Aim discovery at four targets: the other party's trade area in the Phase 4 categories; its expansion history and documented plans; actual confusion or its absence; and knowledge and good faith at adoption. 37 C.F.R. § 2.120.
[ ] Prepare two witnesses carefully.
- The trade-area witness must answer three questions cleanly: how customer geography is captured; what share of revenue comes from inside the claimed territory; and what happens at the edges.
- The adoption witness testifies only to good faith, and briefly.
[ ] Budget honestly: $120,000 to $300,000 per side, two to three years.
- Trap. In most of these matters the litigation costs more than the disputed territory is worth. Compute that ratio and put it in writing before the client authorizes the fight.

Phase 8A — The incumbent registrant's parallel checklist

Everything above assumes you act for the party seeking a concurrent registration. If you act for the national registrant that just discovered a twenty-year-old local business, run this instead.

[ ] Assess exposure before writing to anyone. A pre-existing common-law user with genuine priority in its territory is not an infringer, and constructive use under 15 U.S.C. § 1057(c) does not reach it.
- Trap. An aggressive demand letter to such a party invites a declaratory action and a concurrent use claim at once, and hands them the reasonable-party role. See Sending an Effective Cease-and-Desist Letter; Declaratory Judgment Checklist.
[ ] Fix the ceiling. Document what the other party's footprint was as of your registration date, because that is generally the territory you are negotiating against. Thrifty Rent-A-Car System, Inc. v. Thrift Cars, Inc., 831 F.2d 1177, 1181-82 (1st Cir. 1987).
[ ] Confirm whether an injunction is even available yet. Where you have not entered the market, Dawn Donut may bar prospective relief regardless of who is right on the merits.
[ ] Price the three options side by side.
- Acquire the local rights. For a single-location business, an assignment plus a transition arrangement is often the cheapest complete answer, and it removes the restriction from your certificate permanently, which litigation never does. Confirm it is not an assignment in gross — the goodwill must travel with the mark. See Trademarks in the Deal and Assignment Recordal Checklist.
- Coexist with a negotiated map. Cheaper now, permanent restriction on the certificate.
- Litigate. Most expensive, slowest, and the likely outcome is the map you could have negotiated.
[ ] Protect the national business in whatever deal you strike. Negotiate express permission for national e-commerce, for national advertising that incidentally reaches the excluded area, and for national retail distribution outside it.
- Trap. A restriction drafted around physical locations can inadvertently block an existing e-commerce channel. Read the proposed description against your actual operations before signing.
[ ] Check every other market you plan to enter, not just this one. A registrant that found one prior local user in Bellingham should assume there are others, and should search before the next distribution deal rather than after.
[ ] Report the arrangement upward. A territorial restriction on a core mark is a disclosure item for financing, licensing, and sale, and it belongs in the IP schedule from the day it is signed. See IP Due Diligence Toolkit.

Phase 9 — Negotiate the map instead

[ ] Propose a standstill while the parties exchange trade-area data under a confidentiality agreement.
[ ] Exchange ZIP-code sales analyses and proposed maps with supporting data.
[ ] Settle the territory, then the channel and conduct terms.
[ ] Document it as a concurrent use agreement supporting a consented application with matching descriptions.
[ ] Price the negotiated path against the contested one for the client: $18,000 to $50,000 per side and three to eight months, versus $120,000 to $300,000 and two to three years for the same map.
- See. Settling a Trademark Dispute; Trademark Settlement Checklist.

Phase 10 — Draft the online conduct terms

[ ] Website content. What each party will say about its geographic scope, and the disclaimer each will display, in agreed words.
[ ] Geo-targeted advertising. Which markets each may target, on which platforms, with what exclusions.
[ ] Search advertising. Whether either may bid on the other's name, on the shared mark alone, or on the shared mark plus a geographic modifier. See Running a Keyword and Paid Search Trademark Program.
[ ] Marketplace listings. Whether either may list on major marketplaces, and with what shipping restrictions.
[ ] Shipping and fulfillment. Whether either may ship into the other's territory, in what volume, and whether direct-to-consumer differs from wholesale.
[ ] Social media handles and hashtags, allocated explicitly by name.
[ ] Domain names, subdomains, and app store listings, allocated explicitly.
[ ] Email and support routing where confusion is foreseeable.
- Why this phase is first among the drafting phases. In any business with an e-commerce component, these terms generate every future dispute and the county line generates none. Spend the negotiating capital where the friction will be. See Online Brand Protection Toolkit.

Phase 11 — Draft the confusion protocol

[ ] Define a reportable incident: misdirected orders, payments, or deliveries; inquiries indicating a belief in affiliation; reviews, complaints, or regulatory contacts to the wrong party; third-party or media conflation; and search or marketplace conflation.
[ ] Set a notice duty with a deadline — a stated number of business days from awareness, with a description and documents.
[ ] Specify the first response: correct the record with the affected person, forward misdirected orders and payments, and preserve documentation.
[ ] Build an escalation ladder: if incidents exceed a stated threshold in a stated period, the parties confer within thirty days and consider named remedies — revised disclaimers, changed presentation, adjusted targeting, or a modified territorial or channel term.
[ ] Add a dispute mechanism: mediation before litigation with a named provider and a short timetable, plus a carve-out for immediate injunctive relief on material breach.
[ ] Require an incident log, produced annually.
- Why. The log is the evidence base for any later amendment, for diligence, and for the Board if the arrangement is revisited.
- Trap. "The parties shall cooperate in good faith" will be ignored until someone sues. A clause with deadlines and thresholds will be followed by a general counsel who has never met the other side.

Phase 12 — Draft enforcement, assignment, and exit terms

[ ] Joint enforcement clause. Who acts against a national third-party infringer, who pays, how recoveries are shared, and what happens when one party wants to settle and the other does not.
- Why. Neither concurrent registrant has rights in the other's territory, so a national infringer requires cooperation or leaves a gap.
[ ] Successors and assigns bound, expressly.
[ ] Notice or consent on assignment, and a specific answer to acquisition by a national competitor of the other party.
- Trap. This is the term that determines whether the agreement is worth anything in ten years, and it is the one most often omitted.
[ ] Territorial scope of the agreement itself. State whether it covers only the United States, and address foreign filings, including a mutual consent-to-foreign-filing mechanism.
- Why. Otherwise a clause dividing "the territory" becomes an argument about Europe, where first-to-file rules do not accommodate coexistence gracefully. See International Trademark Toolkit.
[ ] Term, termination, and survival, with attention to what happens to each party's registration if the agreement ends.
[ ] Quality and presentation covenants where the parties' reputations affect each other.
[ ] See Trademark Coexistence Agreement — Template and Trademark Transactions Toolkit.

Phase 13 — Build a consent that survives examination

[ ] Include all eight elements.
1. The parties' reasons for believing confusion is unlikely — specific differences in goods, channels, customers, price points, or presentation.
2. Restrictions on goods or services, in identification-ready language.
3. Restrictions on channels of trade or customer classes.
4. Restrictions on presentation — house marks, lock-ups, color, typography.
5. Geographic limitations with real separation, where the businesses are genuinely regional.
6. A cooperation clause specifying what the parties will do if confusion arises.
7. Evidence of actual coexistence without confusion, where it exists. The single most persuasive item.
8. Successors and assigns.
[ ] Do not file a naked consent.
- Why. "Party A does not object" states a conclusion without reasons and carries little weight. A detailed consent explaining why and how is what examiners credit. In re N.A.D. Inc., 754 F.2d 996, 999-1000 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Four Seasons Hotels Ltd., 987 F.2d 1565, 1568 (Fed. Cir. 1993).
[ ] Confirm the restrictions actually eliminate the overlap.
- Trap. In In re Bay State Brewing Co., 117 U.S.P.Q.2d 1958 (T.T.A.B. 2016), a consent with a geographic restriction failed because the agreement still permitted both parties to operate in the same area. A consent that leaves the overlap in place does not solve the problem it was drafted to solve.
[ ] File the consent with the response and walk the examiner through each element. TMEP § 1207.01(d)(viii).
- See. Overcoming a Section 2 Refusal; Office Action Response Checklist.

Phase 14 — Administer the arrangement

[ ] Diarize an annual review covering confusion incidents, each party's expansion, channel changes, and any change of control.
[ ] File Section 8 and Section 9 documents showing use within the restricted territory.
- Trap. Use outside the territory is not use supporting the registration, and it may breach the agreement.
[ ] Understand what incontestability gives you: after five years, the incontestable right under 15 U.S.C. § 1065 is the right to use the mark as limited. The restriction is part of the right, not an encumbrance on it.
[ ] Keep the agreement, the map, and the confusion log assembled for diligence.
- Why. The restriction on the certificate is the first thing a buyer flags, and having the file ready converts a red flag into a documented arrangement. See Trademark Due Diligence Checklist.
[ ] Where the client is the national party, keep a market-entry protocol that searches for unregistered local users before entering a new territory.
- See. Running a Full Trademark Clearance Search.

Phase 14A — What this costs, on one page for the client

[ ] Put every path in a single table before recommending one, with the client's own numbers where you have them.

| Path | Elapsed | Cost per side | |---|---|---| | Jurisdictional screen | 1-3 days | $3k-$8k | | Good-faith and trade-area evidence file | 6-10 weeks | $21k-$68k | | Territorial drafting | 1-2 weeks | $6k-$15k | | Negotiated map plus consented application | 3-8 months | $18k-$50k | | Consent agreement to overcome a refusal | 2-4 weeks | $8k-$25k | | Coexistence agreement, no filing | 6-12 weeks | $12k-$45k | | Contested concurrent use proceeding | 2-3 years | $120k-$300k | | Court-decree route inside an infringement case | 1-3 years | $250k-$900k | | Acquisition of the local rights | 2-5 months | purchase price + $25k-$70k |

[ ] Add the value of the disputed territory to the same page.
- Why. The single most useful number in these matters is the ratio between the cost of the fight and the revenue at stake in the contested area. In the worked matter, Bellingham's entire business is $3.2 million and the disputed counties represent a fraction of Asheville's revenue. A $250,000 fight over that is not a close call, and putting the two figures next to each other ends most of these disputes in one meeting.
[ ] State the non-monetary costs too: two to three years of management attention, a permanent restriction on a certificate, and a counterparty relationship that has to function for decades either way.

Key Authorities at a Glance

| Authority | What it provides | Phase | |---|---|---| | 15 U.S.C. § 1052(d) | Concurrent registration proviso; court-decree route | 1, 2, 7 | | 15 U.S.C. § 1057(c) | Constructive use from filing | 2 | | 15 U.S.C. § 1055 | Related-company use | 1 | | 15 U.S.C. § 1051(a) | Use-based application | 7 | | 37 C.F.R. § 2.99 | Concurrent use procedure | 2, 7 | | 37 C.F.R. § 2.120 | Board discovery | 8 | | In re Beatrice Foods Co., 429 F.2d 1042 (C.C.P.A. 1970) | Jurisdictional requirements | 2 | | Weiner King, Inc. v. Wiener King Corp., 615 F.2d 512 (C.C.P.A. 1980) | Allocation factors | 5 | | Holiday Inn v. Holiday Inns, Inc., 534 F.2d 312 (C.C.P.A. 1976) | Concurrent use analysis | 5 | | Gray v. Daffy Dan's Bargaintown, 823 F.2d 522 (Fed. Cir. 1987) | Conditions and limitations | 6 | | Thrifty Rent-A-Car Sys., Inc. v. Thrift Cars, Inc., 831 F.2d 1177 (1st Cir. 1987) | Junior user's frozen territory | 5 | | Dawn Donut Co. v. Hart's Food Stores, Inc., 267 F.2d 358 (2d Cir. 1959) | No injunction absent market entry | 1 | | In re E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., 476 F.2d 1357 (C.C.P.A. 1973) | Consent as a confusion factor | 1, 13 | | In re N.A.D. Inc., 754 F.2d 996 (Fed. Cir. 1985) | Substantial weight for consents | 13 | | In re Four Seasons Hotels Ltd., 987 F.2d 1565 (Fed. Cir. 1993) | Detailed consents | 13 | | In re Bay State Brewing Co., 117 U.S.P.Q.2d 1958 (T.T.A.B. 2016) | Overlap defeats the consent | 13 | | 15 U.S.C. § 1058 | Maintenance within the territory | 14 | | 15 U.S.C. § 1065 | Incontestability of the restricted right | 14 | | TBMP § 1103 | Concurrent use practice | 7 | | TMEP § 1207.01(d)(viii) | Consent agreements in examination | 13 |

The five things people get wrong

Skipping prerequisite one. Two dates, twenty minutes, and it determines whether there is a matter at all. It is the most commonly skipped step in the practice and the most expensive one to skip.

Claiming more territory than the data supports. The overreach costs credibility on every allocation factor, and the client usually ends up with less than the honest ask would have produced.

Filing a naked consent. A conclusion without reasons carries little weight, and a consent that leaves the parties free to operate in the same space fails outright.

Drafting the map and forgetting the internet. Geographic terms alone are obsolete. The online conduct terms will generate every dispute the county line does not.

Omitting successors and assigns. These arrangements are administered for decades by people who did not negotiate them, and they are tested by acquisitions. An agreement that binds only the original parties fails at exactly the moment it matters.