The Trade-Mark Cases

100 U.S. 82 (1879)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

The Court consolidated three cases concerning criminal prosecutions for violations of what is known as the trade-mark legislation of Congress. Congress passed laws concerning trademarks in the act of July 8, 1870, entitled 'An Act to revise, consolidate, and amend the statutes relating to patents and copyrights.' The part of this act relating to trade-marks is embodied in chap. 2, tit. 60, sects. 4937 to 4947, of the Revised Statutes. The Act provided for the registration in the Patent Office of any device in the nature of a trade-mark to which any person has by usage established an exclusive right, or which the person so registering intends to appropriate by that act to his exclusive use; and they make the wrongful use of a trade-mark, so registered, by any other person, without the owner's permission, a cause of action in a civil suit for damages. The act of Aug. 14, 1876 (19 Stat. 141), punished by fine and imprisonment the fraudulent use, sale, and counterfeiting of Trademarks registered in pursuance of the statutes of the United States. Ds were convicted for counterfeiting trademarks and appealed contending the Act of 1876 was unconstitutional.