United States Printing & Lithograph Co. v. Griggs, Cooper & Co.

Background

A Minnesota corporation owned a registered trademark “Home Brand” for various grocery goods it sold wholesale in certain northwestern States. An Ohio corporation printed and sold labels using the word “Home,” and those labels were used by buyers in States outside the Minnesota company’s established market. The Minnesota company sued to stop the Ohio company from printing and selling any labels for groceries the Minnesota company sold. The lower courts upheld protection under the Trade Mark Act of February 20, 1905, and granted the injunction.

Reasoning

The Court examined whether the 1905 Act lets a registrant stop uses of a registered mark that occur entirely within a single State and do not affect trade among the States or with foreign nations. The opinion explained that earlier law limited federal trademark remedies to marks used in foreign or Indian trade, and that although the 1905 Act speaks of “commerce among the several States,” the statute and past decisions do not authorize a federal remedy for infringement confined within one State and not touching interstate commerce. The Court therefore reversed the judgment that had given nationwide protection in advance of actual use.

Real world impact

As a result, federal trademark registration under the 1905 Act does not automatically bar purely local uses of similar labels where no interstate commerce is involved. Businesses that sell only within a single State cannot rely on the federal statute to restrain local competitors in those State-only markets; disputes of that kind will turn on state law or require a showing of interstate commerce.