Burger King of Florida, Inc. v. Hoots
United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
403 F.2d 904 (7th Cir. 1968)
Burger King of Florida (plaintiff) opened its first restaurant in Florida in 1953 and expanded into Illinois in 1961, registering "Burger King" federally that same year; separately, Hoots (defendant) had opened a Burger King restaurant in Mattoon, Illinois in 1957, registering the name under Illinois state trademark law without any notice of the Florida chain's existence. By 1961, when Burger King entered Illinois, it had notice of Hoots's prior state registration; Hoots later opened a second restaurant in Charleston, Illinois in 1962, this time with constructive knowledge of Burger King's federal registration, while Burger King itself expanded to over fifty Illinois restaurants by 1967. The district court found Burger King's federal trademark generally superior but preserved Hoots's right to use the mark in the specific area where it had innocently adopted it before Burger King's federal registration; Hoots appealed.
Whether a federally registered trademark grants its owner exclusive nationwide rights to the mark, except in a specific local area where another party had already adopted and continuously used the same mark before the federal registration occurred.