orden de entrada y registro; orden de registro de entrada

These expressions are admittedly confusingly similar, but couldn’t be more different in meaning. Orden de entrada y registro (often shortened to orden de registro) is a criminal law term, being the Spanish equivalent of a “search warrant” ordered by a judge incident to a criminal investigation. Although orden de registro is a commonly used expression, in Spain a search warrant must be issued in the form of an auto, and thus is more properly called an auto de entrada y registro.

In contrast orden de registro de entrada denotes the order in which an application or other document has been filed for entry on an public register and is often important for establishing prior rights in many legal transactions. The “first to file” system is characteristic of many official registers governed by the prior in tempore, potior in jure principle. This idea of “earlier in time, stronger in right” implies that earlier applicants (the first to file their applications) will have superior (prior) rights with respect to those who do so later. For example, in the context of registering a trademark, the first application received (and subsequently granted registration) at the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (Oficina Española de Patentes y Marcas) will have exclusive rights to use that mark.

Intellectual property and other rights can be based on the “first to use” principle or the “first to file” principle.” In “first to file” systems such as in Spain and most civil law countries, regardless of prior use the first person to file an application and to be granted registration will be considered as the legal owner to the exclusion of all others. Thus the order in which applications are received at public registries or in other governmental agencies is often of paramount importance. Registro de entrada denotes a daily register of applications filed, and orden de registro de entrada is the order in which a given application was received, generally based on a date, time and an application number. Thus the expression riguroso orden de registro de entrada de las solicitudes is often used to indicate that applications will be considered “strictly in the order in which they were filed.”