[E-trademarks] What's The Oldest US Registration?

[Ken Boone]

>> Do you mean still in force, or the earliest one (e.g., Registration number "1")?

Huh?  Does that make a difference?

Well, yes it does.  As it happens, the Commissioner (back in the day) dictated that older registrations (for which the only evidence of the registrations being issued were the printed registration certificates appearing in the Bound Volumes in the Public Search Room on the USPTO campus) were not official enough to be included on TESS - no documentation available to verify the registrations.  However, many of those older registration certificates were available and scanned at the USPTO's backup facility in Boyers, PA., and when TSDR became the archive of electronic records, it was decided that those old registration certificates could be included on TSDR.

As it happens, when Trademark Search was developed to replace TESS, some of those older registrations magically appeared on Trademark Search.  Some, but very few.  Go figure.

Today, on Trademark Search, the search SN:6* retrieves 1,826 trademarks.  I don't know why or how, as we were explicitly directed NOT to include any 6XXXXXXX serial numbers on TESS.  Those are old dead registrations - skeleton records on Trademark Search with just the registration number and registration date, presumably the registration dates from the registration certificates when the registration certificates were scanned.

But there are plenty more older registration certificates on TSDR (probably over 600,000) where the serial numbers are constructed by entering the digit 6 followed by the 7-digit, zero-filled registration number to make an 8-digit serial number (since TSDR and Trademark Search like 8-digit serial numbers).

So, if you go to TSDR, change to the multi-search option, and enter

60000001 60000002 60000003 60000004 60000005 60000006 60000007 60000008 60000009 60000010 60000011 60000012 60000013 60000014 60000015 60000016 60000017 60000018 60000019 60000020

you should get the first 20 registrations issued by the USPTO in the modern trademark era, namely registrations 1 through 20, except only expect to see the registration certificates for these older registrations.  (Okay, I just peeked, and some additional noise looks like it has been entered on TSDR for some of these, but I expect those are just clerical errors in USPTO processing.)

And sure enough, tomorrow (October 25th) is the anniversary of the first set of registrations issued by the USPTO (e.g., registration 1, issued Oct. 25, 1870).

Based of the answers to my original question, maybe some of this was a little interesting.

Happy Trademarking,
Ken Boone

PS - Today, the search SN:* retrieves over 12 million trademarks for the first time.
PPS - Every paragraph above probably should be preceded by As I recall ....  It's been a while.

________________________________
From: E-trademarks <e-trademarks-bounces at oppedahl-lists.com> on behalf of Annette Heller via E-trademarks <e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2024 4:17 PM
To: e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com <e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com>; e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com <e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com>
Cc: Annette Heller <tmattorneyheller at aol.com>
Subject: Re: [E-trademarks] What's The Oldest US Registration?

One of the oldest registration still in force is Chow for animal feed in various formats.

Annette

Annette P. Heller
Trademark/Copyright Attorney
TM Law & Associates
400 Chesterfield Center Ste 400
Chesterfield [St Louis] MO 63017

www.TrademarkAtty.com<http://www.trademarkatty.com/>

314-469-2610 Fax 314-469-4850
In a message dated 10/24/2024 4:07:22 PM Central Daylight Time, e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com writes:

Do you mean still in force, or the earliest one (e.g., Registration number "1")?

Richard Straussman
Senior Counsel
Registered Patent Attorney
Member NY, NJ & CT Bars
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Weitzman Law Offices, LLC
Intellectual Property Law
425 Eagle Rock Avenue, Suite 401
Roseland, NJ 07068
direct line 973.403.9943
main 973.403.9940
fax 973.403.9944
e-mail rstraussman at weitzmanip.com<mailto:rstraussman at weitzmanip.com>

http://www.weitzmanip.com<http://www.weitzmanip.com/>




On 10/24/2024 5:03 PM, Ken Boone via E-trademarks wrote:
Someone just asked me, "What's the oldest US registered trademark?"  Rather than providing my answer, I challenge this discussion group to answer that question.  Any guesses?


Happy Hunting!
Ken Boone

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