New York Court of Appeals
The Jewelers’ Mercantile Agency (Limited), Respondent v. the Jewelers’ Weekly Publishing Company (Now the Trades’…
March 8, 1898155 N.Y. 241
Summary
The New York Court of Appeals reversed the lower court, holding that the Jewelers’ Mercantile Agency's delivery of its reference books to subscribers constituted a publication, thereby destroying its common-law right of first publication and precluding a state‑law action based on that right; any statutory copyright would be enforceable only in federal court.