Samuel Freeman Miller

“ True, such trade and intercourse must be foreign, or among the citizens of the different States, or with the Indian tribes; but if the instrumentalities employed as aids to such trade and commerce are not local in their operation and are of such a nature as to admit of uniformity of regulation, the power of Congress not only applies to them, but is exclusive.
2. Trade-marks are important instrumentalities, aids, or appliances by which trade, especially in modern times, is conducted. They are the means by which manufacturers and merchants identify their manufactures and merchandise. ”

“ Property in trade-marks has long been recognized and protected by the common law and by the statutes of the several States, and does not derive its existence from the act of Congress providing for the registration of them in the Patent Office.
2. A trade-mark is neither an invention, a discovery, nor a writing, within the meaning of the eighth clause of the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution, which confers on Congress power to secure for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries. ”

“ Congress having power to legislate upon the subject of trade-marks as a general interest of commerce, it is submitted that the legislation of Congress, the purpose of which is to give them uniform protection throughout the country, is constitutional, however it may affect the internal affairs of the States. ”

“ So, where States, in the exercise of their power to legislate concerning the police, morals, or health of the community, have endeavored to regulate the sale of particular articles, as of spirituous liquors, their laws are invalid, so far as they affect the sale of imported goods by the importer while they are in the original package and not mixed up with the general mass of salable commodities. ”

“ Further specification is unnecessary; for the demurrers are general, and the ground of each is that the entire act is unconstitutional.
Its constitutionality in its application to the trade-marks of the subjects of foreign countries is the question presented by the indictments.
The purpose and the natural and reasonable effect of the acts are to protect the producer or the importer of foreign goods in his right of selling them in the United States, and thus carry out in good faith and enforce our treaty stipulations on the subject. The act is a regulation of foreign commerce. ”