Getting a COA registered

[SlackerDrummer]

And in the United States, of course, there is neither a granting authority nor any legal provision for recognizing the validity of foreign grants of arms or protecting whatever rights those grants conveyed in the country of origin. That means that in the United States, an English or Scottish grant of arms has the same substantive status as arms assumed at will.

Does it? I wonder? I would think that at the end of the day, if someone with a substantive grant of arms brought a suit against someone who had merely assumed the same coat that they would be on firmer ground re: ownership of the disputed devise. That said, the concept of "first past the post" might equally apply, especially if the proprietor of the assumed arms could prove usage ante-the date of the granted arms. Hmmm....

First of all you are talking about the assumption of the same coat of arms that exists in a grant from a foreign authority. At the AHS we stress the importance of due diligence in creating a unique and original coat of arms if you are going to assume arms. So let's assume someone has usurped (intentionally or not) arms that were granted by a foreign authority to another person. Where would they sue and on what grounds?

Presumably the suit would take place in the jurisdiction where the tort took place. One party (presumably the substantive armiger) would have to establish that some sort of injury or loss occurred because the assumptive armiger was trespassing on the intellectual property rights that are inherent within a personal mark of identification, such as a coat of arms or a cattle brand.

Other than in Scotland, where the mis-use of arms is a criminal offense (defrauding the government of statutory fees), a suit of this sort would be heard in civil court.

Exactly. One would have to establish that damages occurred which would be very difficult unless 1) the grantee's arms were used in commerce and 2) the usurper's use of the arms had an impact on the grantee's business. And even then, I'm not sure a court would rule in favor of the grantee unless the actual image of the arms used by the usurper was one lifted from the grantee. I'm not sure, based on current American copyright or trademark law, that an original emblazonment owned by the usurper would be seen by the court as being the same as the grantee's.

There is a general assumption (no pun intended) put forth by Scott in this part of the debate that assumed arms are likely to be duplicates of granted arms. I don't know if that is an intentional effort to put forth the notion that people who assume arms are by and large usurpers of granted arms, but it is a gross mischaracterization of what it means to assume arms.

To add to I what have already said on this subject, ... if by coincidence identical arms are possessed by the grantee of "substantive" arms and by one who has assumed arms and the assumer can establish use of said arms prior to the date of the grant, he can just as easily sue for damages and would stand just as good a chance of winning as the grantee in Scott's example above. It is not a matter of grant trumping assumption, but a matter of when ownership of this intellectual property occurred.