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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Posts
    1,485
    Country: United States

    Default Date of "Miller" scroll trademark?

    Many locks have long production histories but also have clues to help date them. A nice article on Miller push-key locks was in the West Coast Lock Collectors' newsletter, April 1998 page 5, by Bill Cunningham. He states that Miller started using a scroll trademark which was registered on October 9, 1906.

    I can't find this registration at uspto.gov, even doing a search for all registrations on that date (only 9 of them), or searching for "Miller Lock Company". So I'm wondering where Bill got his information, or if I am really that bad at searching for trademarks!

    He also asserts "Of course, locks marked with this scroll trademark were made after October 9, 1906" but I would disagree, it's possible they used the trademark long before they bothered to register it. That's why I would like to find the trademark registration, it usually includes a (claimed) "first use" date.

    Jim

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Location
    USA
    Posts
    53
    Country: United States

    Default

    Some trademarks unfortunately appear to not be in the Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) database, because TESS can't find them. If there are later versions of the trademark, then there may be registration numbers of previous trademarks (prior registrations) on the TESS description page or in the trademark's registration certificate. If you can find the registration number, then you can enter it into TARR and click on the Trademark Document Retrieval link, where the registration certificate may be available for you to look at.

    Most of the Miller combination locks at
    Click image for larger version. 

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    http://vintagecombinationlocks.com/#miller are stamped "Reg. U.S. Pat. Off." (the marking that was commonly used before the "®" symbol became common), so the Miller scroll trademark may very well have been registered. I also can not find anything related to Miller locks on TESS, so the trademark may very well be one of the "missing" trademarks that TESS can't find per my above paragraph.

    A search on TESS for the registration date of October 9, 1906 returns 14 results, with the lowest registration number being 56,558 and the highest one being 56,628. Who knows if the gaps between those 14 registrations in that range are "missing" trademarks. Perhaps the "missing" Miller trademark registration has a registration number within that range or somewhere near that range.

    Regards,

    Zachary.

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