Definition of "privity" [priv•i•ty]

• Knowledge of something private or secret shared between individuals, especially with the implication of approval or consent. (noun)
• Law A relation between parties that is held to be sufficiently close and direct to support a legal claim on behalf of or against another person with whom this relation exists. (noun)
• Law A successive or mutual interest in or relationship to the same property. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Descriptiveness is redundant for an individual name; the payoff of this rather strained statutory construction is the addition of a good faith requirement, raising the question whether an individual (or someone in privity with him/her, as also allowed by the statute) can use his/her own name, not as a mark, but still in bad faith."
• "For example, a bailbondsman who acts as a bounty hunter vis a client who skipped jail is not considered a state actor and is not subject any of the provisions of constitutional criminal procedure that would otherwise apply, nor is someone working for a bounty to apprehend a criminal at large with whom the bounty hunter is not in privity, nor it the repo man (even if acting pursuant to a court order obtained in advance authorizing the seizure)."
• "As for privity, the court found that Florida law was a “moving target,” filled with inconsistencies, and there’s no settled rule for whether privity is required to recover economic losses for breach of express warranty."