 The Burger King v. Hoots trademark dispute and its resulting decision went beyond the original case , it established a major legal precedent in the United States in regards to the Lanham Act . The ruling states that while the senior user of the state service mark or trademark has prior usage of the common law marks , federal statute overrides the earlier , state service mark and prohibits the senior user from preventing the junior user from exercising the use of the federally registered mark outside a defined geographic reach of the senior user . 
