La Republique Francaise v. Saratoga Vichy Spring Company

This was a bill in equity brought in the circuit court of the United States for the northern district of New York by the French Republic, as owner, and La Compagnie Fermiere de l'Etablissement Thermal de Vichy (hereinafter termed the Vichy company), as lessee, of the springs of Vichy, France, against the Saratoga Vichy Spring Company, for the unlawful use of the word 'Vichy,' claimed by the plaintiffs as a commercial name or trade-mark, and appropriated for the waters of the defendant, which are drawn from a certain natural spring at Saratoga, New York.

Defense: That for fifty years mineral water has been sold throughout the world under the name of 'Vichy,' and that such name has come to denote a type of water, namely, alkaline, noncathartic, carbonated water, and does not stand for the water of any one spring; that defendant has never sold Vichy as and for that of the plaintiffs, nor in resemblance thereto, but has so labeled its water that the purchaser shall know that it is a natural mineral water of Saratoga; and that plaintiffs' claim is stale.

The bill was dismissed by the circuit court upon the ground that plaintiffs had no exclusive clusive right to the use of the word 'Vichy,' and that defendant had never been guilty of an attempt to palm off its waters as the imported article. 99 Fed. 733. On appeal, the court of appeals reversed the decision of the circuit court and granted an injunction against the use of one particular label, or 'any other label in which the place of the origin of the water is not as plainly and prominently made known as the fact that it is named 'Vichy." 46 C. C. A. 418, 107 Fed. 459.

Plaintiffs thereupon applied for a writ of certiorari, which was granted. Defendant made no similar application, but acquiesced in the decree, and discontinued the offending label.

Messrs. Charles Bulkely Hubbell, Archibald Cox, and Archibald Hopkins for petitioners.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 429-431 intentionally omitted]

Messrs. Edgar T. Brackett and Walter P. Butler for respondent.

Statement by Mr. Justice Brown:

[Argument of Counsel from pages 431-434 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice Brown delivered the opinion of the court: