Opinion of the Court. Company v. Tennessee Manufacturing Company, 138 U. S. 537; Croft v. Day, 7 Beavan, 84; Holloway v. Holloway, 13 Beavan, 209; McLean v. Fleming, 96 U. S. 245; Wotherspoon v. Currie, L. R. 5 H. L. 508; Thompson v. Montgomery, 41 Ch. D. 35, 50. In this case there is evidence tending to show that the defendant is attempting to appropriate to itself by unfair means the good name which the preparation of the complainant has acquired by advertising and use among the public at large. Witnesses who are retail druggists testified that the defendant's agents visited them and recommended the sale of the defendant's article, on the ground that the druggists could palm off the defendant's article as the complainant's article upon intending purchasers who were not familiar with the complainant's package and who called only for " Syrup of Figs," intending thereby to purchase the complainant's article. The defendant reduces the price of its article very considerably in order to induce druggists to take this course. We are not prepared to say, therefore, that the complainant might not, except for the reason about to be stated, be entitled to some relief by an injunction against the defendant, to prevent unfair competition. Second. But the second ground presented, and that upon which the court below rested its decision, prevents the complainant from having any relief at all. That ground is that the complainant has built up its business and made it valuable by an intentional deceit of the public. It has intended the public to understand that the preparation which it sells has, as an important medicinal agent in its composition, the juice of California figs. This has undoubtedly led the public into the purchase of the preparation. The statement is wholly untrue. Just a suspicion of fig juice has been put into the preparation, not for the purpose of changing or having any effect whatever on its medicinal character or even its flavor, but merely to give a weak support to the statement that the article sold is syrup of figs. This is a fraud upon the public. It is true it may be a harmless humbug to palm off upon the public as syrup of figs what VOL. XLIII-16 Opinion of the Court. is syrup of senna, but it is nevertheless of such a character that a court of equity will not encourage it by extending any relief to the person who seeks to protect a business which has grown out of and is dependent upon such deceit. It is well settled that if a person wishes his trade-mark property to be protected by a court of equity he must come into the court with clean hands, and if it appears that the trade-mark for which he seeks protection is itself a misrepresentation to the public, and has acquired a value with the public by fraudulent misrepresentation in advertisements, all relief will be denied to him. This is the doctrine of the highest court of England, and no court has laid it down with any greater stringency than the Supreme Court of the United States. Manhattan Medicine Company v. Wood, 108 U. S. 218; The Leather Cloth Company, Limited, v. The American Leather Cloth Company, Limited, 4 De G., J. & S. 137, 11 H. L. Cas. 523; Buckland v. Rice, 40 Ohio St. 526; Palmer v. Harris, 60 Penn. St. 156; The Prince Manufacturing Company v. Prince's Metallic Paint Company, 135 N. Y. 24; Krauss v. Jos. R. Peebles' Sons Co., 58 Fed. Rep. 585; Connell v. Reed, 128 Mass. 477; Siegert v. Abbott, 61 Maryland, 276, 284. The argument for the complainant is that, because fig juice or syrup has no laxative property, everybody ought to understand that when the term is used to designate a laxative medicine it must have only a fanciful meaning. But the fact is admitted that the public believe that fig juice or syrup has laxative medicinal properties. It is to them that the complainant seeks to sell its preparation, and it is with respect to their knowledge and impressions that the character, whether descriptive or fanciful, of the term used is to be determined. Exactly this question, raised against the same complainant, was considered by the Circuit Court for the District of Massachusetts, in California Fig Syrup Co. v. Putnam, 66 Fed. Rep. 750, and relief was denied by Judge Colt to the complainant on the ground that its use of the term "Syrup of Figs" was a misrepresentation to the public and a fraud upon it. The case was carried to the Circuit Court of Appeals and affirmed upon Syllabus. the opinion of the Circuit Judge. California Fig Syrup Company v. Putnam, 33 U. S. App. 283. Reliance is had by the complainant upon a decision of the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which was on an appeal from an order of Judge McKenna granting a preliminary injunction. The opinion in the Ninth Circuit is based on the theory that the term "Syrup of Figs" is not descriptive. Improved Fig Syrup Company v. California Fig Syrup Company, 7 U. S. App. 588, 595. We are unable to follow that learned court to this conclusion. It seems to us that the reasoning of Judge Colt, affirmed as it is by the Court of Appeals of the First Circuit, is more satisfactory. The decree of the court below is Affirmed, with costs. GENESEE SALT COMPANY v. BURNAP. APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE WESTERN DIVISION OF THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF OHIO. No. 370. Argued February 6, 1896. — Decided April 14, 1896. Words merely descriptive of the character, quality and composition of an article, or of the place where it is manufactured or produced, cannot be monopolized as a trade-mark. Where one is shown to be palming off his manufactures as those of another he may be enjoined, even where he commits the fraud merely by the use of names which are not the subject of trade-mark property. The Genesee Salt Company, having salt works in the valley of the Genesee River in the State of New York, manufactured salt of various qualities, and that which it prepared for dairy purposes was packed in sacks and bags of white linen branded in black letters with the words "Genesee Salt Co., Factory Filled," accompanied by a registered trade-mark. B. & B. sold salt for dairy purposes which was actually manufactured in Genesee County, New York, and they sold it in bags made of brown toweling marked "Genesee Co. Factory Filled Salt," accompanied by words to show that it was put up for B. & B. In a suit brought by the Genesee Salt Company against B. & B. to restrain them from packing, selling or keeping or offering for sale or otherwise disposing of any salt not of the manufacture of the Genesee Salt Company under the Statement of the Case. 66 terms "Genesee Salt," or "Genesee Co. Salt," or to which should be applied in any form or manner, as the name and designation thereof, the words "Genesee Co. Salt," or the words "Genesee" and Genesee Salt," with or without other words, and from in any other manner or form using any name or designation which was calculated to cause their article to be known in the market and sold under the name of the article sold by the Genesee Salt Company, or as "Genesee Salt," the bill being brought to restrain unfair competition in business, it was held (1) that, as the name " Genesee," when used in connection with the salt of the Genesee Salt Company, obviously referred to the place of its production, the Genesee Salt Company could therefore assert no trademark property in it; (2) that as the evidence did not show that B. & B. were fraudulently palming off "Genesee County Salt" as the salt of the Genesee Salt Company, the Genesee Salt Company was sufficiently protected from unfair competition by requiring that the word “Co.” should be written out in full by B. & B. on the salt sold by them so as to read "County," and by enjoining B. & B. from representing in any way that their salt was the salt of the Genesee Salt Company; (3) that B. & B. should not be enjoined from the use of the words "Genesee County Salt" and "Genesee Salt,” in the sale of salt actually manufactured in Genesee County, when those words were used without abbreviation, and not in imitation of or in resemblance to the trade-mark of the Genesee Salt Company; and (4) that if B. & B. had been persistently palming off their goods as the goods of the Genesee Salt Company equitable relief might have enjoined the use of the word "Genesee," by B. & B., but that as B. & B. had explained to the public that their salt was made in Genesee County they might rightfully call it "Genesee Salt" or "Genesee County Salt," provided they did not intentionally mislead the public into buying their salt as the salt of the Genesee Salt Company. Before TAFT and LURTON, Circuit Judges, and HAMMOND, District Judge. This is an appeal from a decree of the Circuit Court of the United States for the Western Division of the Northern District of Ohio, entered upon a bill filed by the Genesee Salt Company, a corporation organized under the laws of the State of New York, against Hiram F. Burnap and James D. Burnap, partners and citizens of Ohio, to restrain unfair competition in business. The Genesee Salt Company has its salt works at Piffard, Livingston County, in the valley of the Genesee River, in the State of New York. It manufactures salt of various qualities. The salt which it prepares for dairy Statement of the Case. purposes is packed in sacks and bags of white English or Irish linen branded in black letters as follows: This salt has been sold since 1884, and has come to be known among the buyers of salt as "Genesee Salt." The firm of Burnap & Burnap, of Toledo, Ohio, was organized in 1890 for the sale of dairy supplies. Among other supplies they sold the complainant's Genesee salt in bags as packed by the complainant. In 1892 they purchased from the Pavilion Salt Company, a company which makes salt at the town of Pavilion, in Genesee County, in the State of New York, dairy salt which the Pavilion Salt Company called "Genesee County Salt." The salt was packed in bags made of brown toweling and marked: GENESEE CO., Put up Expressly for BURNAP & BURNAP, Toledo, Ohio. "Factory filled" is a term widely used to denote a quality of dairy salt. In 1892 the salt works at St. Clair, Michigan, of the company which manufactured the Diamond Crystal Salt, burned |