In a Trademark Act §44 application, the examining attorney must confirm that: (1) both the applicant’s country of origin and the country where the applicant has filed the application or obtained registration are (a) parties to a treaty or agreement with the United States or (b) they extend reciprocal rights to U.S. nationals by foreign law; and (2) the specific benefit that the applicant is claiming under §44 (i.e., the right to a priority filing date under §44(d) and/or the right to registration under §44(e)) is provided for under the treaty, agreement, or foreign law. See TMEP §§1002.01, 1002.02.

To determine whether a particular country has a treaty with the United States that provides for the benefit that the applicant is claiming under §44, examining attorneys should consult Appendix B of this manual. Appendix B lists the members of the Paris Convention, Inter-American Convention, Buenos Aires Convention, World Trade Organization, European Union ("EU"), and certain countries entitled to reciprocal treatment under other international agreements or foreign laws, as well as websites where examining attorneys can obtain updated information about these treaties, agreements, or foreign laws.

Some EU member states maintain special relationships with overseas countries and territories (OCTs), which include Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, St-Eustatius, St-Maarten, New Caledonia, French Polynesia, Wallis et Futuna, Saint-Pierre et Miquelon, and Mayotte. Generally, these OCTs are not parties to a relevant treaty or agreement with the United States, nor do they extend reciprocal rights to U.S. nationals by foreign law, as required by §44. Therefore, if the applicant’s country of origin, or the country that issued the foreign registration, is one of these OCTs, the application is not entitled to priority under §44(d) or registration under §44(e) unless they fall under one of the exceptions below. See 15 U.S.C. §1126(b), (d), (e); TMEP §§1002.01, 1002.02. For more information about OCTs, see European Commission, Overseas Countries & Territories https://international-partnerships.ec.europa.eu/countries/overseas-countries-and-territories_en (accessed December 19, 2025).

Citizens of British overseas territories and Crown Dependencies are also citizens of the United Kingdom. See GOV.UK, Types of British Nationality, https://www.gov.uk/types-of-british-nationality/british-overseas-territories-citizen (accessed December 19, 2025). Therefore, individuals claiming citizenship in Anguilla, Bermuda, British Antarctic Territory, British Indian Ocean Territory, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Montserrat, Pitcairn Islands, Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands, the Bailiwick of Jersey, the Bailiwick of Guernsey, and the Isle of Man will be considered as having the United Kingdom as one of their countries of origin. This authority only applies to individual citizens of overseas territories. Accordingly, individual citizens of the British overseas territories or Crown Dependencies, are eligible for priority under §44(d) if the relevant foreign application was filed in a country which is party to an international agreement to which the United States is also a party, or registration under §44(e) if the foreign registration issued from the United Kingdom. See TMEP App. B. In addition, an individual applicant from a United Kingdom territory may rely on a United Kingdom application or registration if the applicant has an address in the United Kingdom or in the Isle of Man. Compare CandyVerse, LLC v. Zeeth Ltd., Opp. No. 91289595, 2025 TTAB LEXIS 459 (2025) which considers a juristic applicant organized in a British overseas territory and its eligibity for §44(d) priority.

In a §44 application or an amendment adding or substituting §44 as a basis, an eligible applicant may rely on an application filed in or registration issued by certain common offices of several states. A "common office of several states" refers to an entity serving as the issuing office for trademark registrations for an established group of countries. Examples include the Benelux Trademark Office, servicing Belgium, The Netherlands, and Luxembourg; and the African Intellectual Property Organization ("OAPI"), which issues registrations covering all member states (i.e., Benin, Burkina-Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, and Togo).

An applicant may also claim the benefits of §44 based on an application for or registration of an EU trademark if the applicant has a bona fide and effective industrial or commercial establishment in a country or state that is a member of the EU, formerly known as the European Community (EC) or European Economic Community (EEC). See Appendix B for a list of these countries.

Effective January 1, 2021, a citizen of the United Kingdom or a juristic entity organized under the laws of a United Kingdom country or overseas territory may no longer rely on an EU registration to support a §44(e) registration basis unless it can show that the EU is its country of origin. For more information about establishing country of origin for a §44(e) registration basis, see TMEP §1002.04.

On January 1, 2021 the IP Office of the United Kingdom (UKIPO) began automatically issuing a UK trademark registration to replace every active EU trademark registration. The UK trademark registration will retain the original EU trademark filing date as well as the original priority and UK seniority dates. The UKIPO will not issue registration certificates for these trademarks. Instead, it will reflect the new trademark registrations in its electronic records on its website, GOV.UK. If an applicant submitted an active EU registration to support its §44(e) registration basis prior to January 1, 2021, the USPTO will update its electronic records to reflect the UK registration number. If a §44(e) applicant did not previously supply a copy of its active EU registration and is relying on an automatically issued UK trademark registration, the applicant must submit a copy of the trademark registration record found on the UKIPO’s website.

A party who had an EU trademark application that was pending on January 1, 2021 may apply to register the same trademark with the UKIPO. An applicant who files by September 30, 2021 will retain the original EU trademark filing date as well as the original priority and UK seniority dates. For more information about the UKIPO’s trademark policies relating to BREXIT, see GOV.UK, EU Trade Mark Protection & Comparable UK Trade Marks, https://www.gov.uk/guidance/eu-trademark-protection-and-comparable-uk-trademarks#history (accessed December 19, 2025).

If an eligible applicant filed an application or obtained a registration in a country that is a member of the Paris Convention, Inter-American Convention, World Trade Organization, or European Union, the applicant can claim the benefits of either §44(d) or §44(e) if the applicant meets the requirements of those sections. An eligible applicant may also file under either §44(e) or §44(d) based on an application filed or registration obtained in Taiwan. On the other hand, if the applicant filed an application or obtained a registration in a country that is a member of the Buenos Aires Convention, the applicant may seek registration under §44(e), but may not obtain a priority filing date under §44(d). See Appendix B for additional information.

In the case of treaties and agreements not covered in TMEP Appendix B, an applicant can establish its eligibility for the benefits of §44 by providing evidence of statutes establishing reciprocity between the United States and the relevant country. See CandyVerse, LLC v. Zeeth Ltd., Opp. No. 91289595, 2025 TTAB LEXIS 459, at *18-19 (2025) (finding applicant's §44(d) claim of priority acceptable because the juristic applicant's country of origin was the British Virgin Islands, a British self-governed overseas territory under which applicant was organized, and that, although the British Virgin Islands was not party to a relevant treaty or agreement with the United States, the Virgin Islands Trade Marks Act (VITMA) extended priority rights to U.S. nationals reciprocal to those extended by §44(d) to foreign nationals). Examining attorneys may also consult sources such as Donna A. Tobin, Trademarks Throughout the World (5th ed. 2025) and Ethan Horowitz, Horowitz on World Trademark Law & Practice (2025), available to USPTO employees from the Trademark Law Librarians, for information about the trademark laws of foreign countries. Additional resources are listed in Appendix B.

See TMEP §1002.01 for information about how the examining attorney should handle an application in which the applicant is not entitled to registration under §44(e), and §1002.02 for information about how the examining attorney should handle an application in which the applicant is not entitled to priority under §44(d).