## Facts

- Griggs, Cooper & Co., a Minnesota wholesaler, owned a federally registered trademark, “Home Brand,” for grocery goods and had established wholesale markets only in certain northwestern states.
- United States Printing & Lithograph Co., an Ohio company, printed and sold labels for similar grocery goods that used the word “Home.”
- Purchasers used the labels in states outside Griggs, Cooper’s established markets.
- The complaint did not allege that the Printing Company’s conduct was in, or interfered with, interstate or foreign commerce; the alleged infringement was presented as confined within individual states.
- Griggs, Cooper sought to enjoin the Printing Company from printing or selling the challenged labels for grocery goods Griggs, Cooper sold, effectively seeking protection beyond its actual trading territory.

## Issues

1. Whether the Trade-Mark Act of 1905 creates a federal remedy when alleged trademark infringement is purely intrastate and does not interfere with interstate or foreign commerce.
2. Whether federal registration under the 1905 Act extends trademark rights into states where the registrant has not used the mark, thereby enlarging common-law territorial rights.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the judgment affirming an injunction against the Printing Company.
- The Court held that the Trade-Mark Act of 1905 provides no remedy where infringement occurs solely within a state and does not interfere with interstate or foreign commerce.
- The Court further held that federal registration under the 1905 Act does not enlarge common-law trademark rights in a state where the mark has not been used.

## Legal Principles

- The remedial reach of the Trade-Mark Act of 1905 is limited to infringement connected to commerce Congress may regulate (interstate commerce, foreign commerce, or commerce with Indian tribes), and does not cover purely intrastate acts lacking such a connection.
- Federal trademark registration under the 1905 Act does not “project” trademark rights nationwide in the absence of use; it does not create substantive rights against intrastate uses in markets where the registrant has not established the mark.
- Common-law trademark rights are territorial and arise from use in a given market; federal registration does not displace these territorial limits absent a commerce-based statutory hook.

## Conclusion

The Court held that the 1905 federal trademark statute did not authorize relief for intrastate infringement unconnected to interstate or foreign commerce and did not extend a registrant’s rights into states where the mark had not been used, so the state-court injunction was reversed.


United States Printing & Lithograph Co. v. Griggs, Cooper & Co., 279 U.S. 156 (1929)