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Early U.S. federal trademark law is dominated by the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous opinion in the Trade-Mark Cases, which invalidated the federal trademark laws enacted 1870 through 1876 on constitutional grounds. This case however exists in a broader milieu which is dominated by concerns of reciprocity with treaty counterparties to bilateral treaties – and the power of Congress to pass legislation to enforce those treaties in the absence of a clear grant in the Constitution. The story of U.S. trademark law at the time is the story of a largely isolated economy encountering the broader commercial world, and its legal system adapting to this reality by reckoning with powers Congress would need to prevent the United States from being excluded from the nascent global economy.