Hanover Star Milling Co. v. Metcalf, 240 U.S. 403 (1916) (No. 23)

Case name: Hanover Star Milling Co. v. Metcalf Opinion filed: 1916-03-13 Docket No.: 23 Citations: • 240 U.S. 403 • 36 S. Ct. 357 • 60 L. Ed. 713 • 1916 U.S. LEXIS 1463 Case holding summaries: • “trademark was adopted and used [by the junior user] in good faith without knowledge or notice that the name ‘Tea Rose’ had been adopted or used by the [senior user]” • “in good faith and without notice of the [senior user’s] mark” • holding that “[i]n the ordinary case of parties competing under the same mark in the same market, it is correct to say that prior appropriation settles the question.” • superseded by statute in irrelevant part Foxtrap, Inc. v. Foxtrap, Inc., 217 U.S.App.D.C. 130, 671 F.2d 636, 215 U.S.P.Q. 1105 (1916) • explaining that the junior user adopted the mark “in perfect good faith, with no knowledge that anybody else was using or had used those words” • "Since it is the trade, and not the mark, that is to be protected, a trade-mark acknowledges no territorial boundaries of municipalities or states or nations, but extends to every market where the trader's goods have become known and identified by his use of the mark." • "But the mark, of itself, cannot travel to markets where there is no article to wear the badge and no trader to offer the article.... [T]he trade-mark right assigned" cannot be "greater in extent than the trade in which it [is] used." (internal quotation marks omitted) • superseded by statute as stated in Foxtrap, Inc. v. Foxtrap, Inc., 671 F.2d 636 (D.C.Cir.1982) • "But the mark, of itself, cannot travel to markets where there is no article to wear the badge and no trader to offer the article. . . . [T]he trade-mark right assigned" cannot be "greater in extent than the trade in which it [is] used." (internal quotation marks omitted)