​Written by Anne Gilson LaLonde and Jerome Gilson for the 2018 INTA conference. In the twenty-first century, trademark infringement spills over national borders. But trademark rights are cabined and territorial, existing in each country under its own laws. American trademark owners predictably tussle with infringers abroad while American courts try to sort them out.

Trademark owners can sometimes summon Lanham Act power that charges right through United States borders. The federal courts have unquestioned authority to handle much infringement taking place entirely outside the country, or almost entirely. But uniform standards for deciding when and how that power should be used are stunningly absent. The only relevant (although quite influential) Supreme Court case is sixty-five years old. In the age of global connectivity, the circuit courts are, pun intended, all over the map on when to apply the Lanham Act to activity abroad.