Getting a COA registered

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

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.

Kenneth, in those quotes you've selected the topic really was "coincidentally identical arms, and who the courts might consider to be the rightful owner of said devisal". You are reading far to much into what I have posted. As far as it being "a gross mischaracterization of what it means to assume arms" (that they usurp the rights of granted arms) I don't believe that I have directly spoken on this particular point at length, and I certainly haven't said that assumed arms, for whatever reason, always trespass on the rights of substantive armigers. (I know for a fact that you, and the others in your group, go out of your way to make sure that any devisals you may come up with are as clean as a hound dog's tooth. But that's really not the larger issue, as I see it.) What has been discussed, is the legal vs. quasi-legal status of substantive vs. assumed 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. (emphasis added-MoR)

Having been deposed as an expert witness in a suit over a specific type of moveable intellectual property which closely parallels armoury, it has been my experience that the courts in the United States look to the date of first registration-- even if it was last week-- as the proof of ownership.

The specifics of the case involved a clan society (naturally) and an "armorial logotype". As it happened, there was a split in the society and an argument ensued over the ownership of the logotype. Ultimately the original group sued the splinter group and the whole thing went to court. The plaintiff's case collapsed when the defendants produced a copy of their trademark registration (a document that grants exclusive use of a well-defined design to a single individual or group, in approximately the same way a grant of arms confirms exclusive rights to the armiger). The position of the court, in this instance, was that the first to register the design was the owner.