Warehousing is the practice of making periodic, "token use" of a mark over time, with no present intent to commercially exploit the mark. Prior to the 1988 revision of the Trademark Act in which Intent to Use applications became available, warehousing was used to secure early priority rights in a mark without actually using the mark. Currently, warehousing is still used to circumvent the law of trademark abandonment which states that a mark is abandoned, and thus no longer protectable, when the owner discontinues its use with no intent to resume use in the reasonably foreseeable future. Technically, "token use" is insufficient use to establish trademark rights, however, circumvention of the actual use requirement can be hard to detect.
