out the district, and whether it conforms to the plan outlined in the city charter, are conclusively disposed of by the decisions of the state court. We have to deal only with the questions raised as to the alleged denial of the protection afforded by the Fourteenth Amendment. An examination of the plat made part of the record, and reproduced in the briefs of counsel, shows that owing to the curvatures in Broadway and the relation thereto of converging and parallel streets, the assessing district laid out in accordance with the charter is of irregular outline. The lots assessed are by no means uniform in size, nor is their relation to the improvement uniformly alike. Some blocks, including some of the plaintiff in error's, are not subdivided into lots, and are irregular in shape. But we are not prepared to hold that the assessment district was so laid out with reference to plaintiff in error's property as requires this court to declare the application of the area rule a denial of due process of law, or of the equal protection of the laws. That the assessment, owing to the difficulties of the situation, made inequalities inevitable, is apparent. The Supreme Court of the State finds, and we are not prepared to disturb its conclusion, that the property east and west of Broadway, in the subdivision of the same for the purposes of assessment, was treated with fairness and with as much equality as the situation permitted. The attack upon constitutional grounds because of the system which the charter authorized in making the assessment can only succeed if it has produced results as to plaintiff in error's property palpably arbitrary or grossly unequal. This system has been sustained in many decisions in the Supreme Court of Missouri, and has long been enforced in practice in that State. Its application in the instance passed upon in Gast Realty Co. v. Schneider Granite Co., 240 U. S., supra, was found to work so arbitrarily as to require an avoidance of the area assessment upon constitutional grounds. The

frontage rule of assessment, now generally in use, has been frequently sustained by the decisions of this court. It may and does in some instances work inequalities in benefits conferred upon property assessed. In the present case a calculation found in the brief of the defendant in error, the correctness of which does not seem to be challenged, shows that if the property had been assessed by the front-foot rule, that of the plaintiff in error would have had a larger assessment than the one which resulted from the method employed.

The Supreme Court of Missouri found that no evidence was offered to sustain the allegations of the cross-bill that the tax-bills were confiscatory or disproportionate to the benefits received in that the city escaped paying its just proportion of the cost of the improvement because of its ownership of property within the district.

We are not prepared to say that the plaintiff in error, because of arbitrary legislative action or the abuse of power, was denied due process of law or the equal protection of the laws in this assessment.

Affirmed.

COMPAÑIA GENERAL DE TABACOS DE FILIPINAS v. ALHAMBRA CIGAR & CIGARETTE MANUFACTURING COMPANY.

APPEAL FROM THE SUPREME COURT OF THE PHILIPPINE

ISLANDS.

No. 180. Submitted January 22, 1919.-Decided March 3, 1919.

An appeal from the Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands perfected before the Act of September 6, 1916, is governed by § 248 of the Judicial Code, which gives this court jurisdiction in all cases in which any treaty of the United States is involved. P. 75.

A decision of the Supreme Court of the Philippines that the name "Isabela" is a geographical and descriptive term not subject to registration as a trade-name under the law before or since the cession of the Islands, and that its use as a designation of cigars and cigarettes was not unfair competition, and that the suit was not for infringement of a trade-name, "La Flor de la Isabela," registered under the Spanish regime, held not to involve the provisions of the Treaty of Paris of 1898, Arts. VIII and XIII, providing that the cession shall not impair property rights previously acquired, and that rights of property secured by copyrights and patents acquired by Spaniards in the Islands shall be continued and respected. P. 75. Ubeda v. Zialcita, 226 U. S. 452, distinguished.

Appeal to review 33 Phil. Rep. 485, dismissed.

THE case is stated in the opinion.

Mr. F. C. Fisher for appellant.

Mr. Harry W. Van Dyke for appellee. Mr. Edmund W. Van Dyke was also on the brief.

MR. JUSTICE DAY delivered the opinion of the court.

Suit was brought by the appellant, a corporation organized under the laws of Spain, in the Court of First Instance of Manila. The complainant set up that for more than twenty-seven years it had been engaged in the business of manufacturing cigars and cigarettes in the Philippine Islands. That its factory is known as "La Flor de la Isabela," which name is used upon the packages and containers of the products manufactured by complainant and on the advertising matter in its cigar and cigarette business. That on April 5, 1887, the Kingdom of Spain as the sovereign authority in the Philippine Islands issued to it, under laws then in force, a certificate of registration and ownership of certain trade-marks and trade-names and label designs therein described and enumerated, including the trade-name "La Flor de la

Isabela" conferring the right upon the complainant to all the benefits appurtenant thereto, including the right to prosecute for infringement. That the trade-name has been in continuous use solely by the complainant from the issuance of the Spanish certificate of registration and ownership to the time of bringing suit, except for the acts of the appellee. That by reason of the long-continued use of the phrase "La Flor de la Isabela" to designate its factory and its products the said phrase and sundry abbreviations thereof when applied to the manufactures of tobacco as a distinguishing brand or name had come to have a secondary meaning designating and denoting that they are the products of its factory. In common parlance the name "La Flor de la Isabela" is abbreviated to "Isabelas" when applied to cigars or cigarettes. That on or about the first of June, 1914, the defendant, now appellee, a corporation organized under the laws of the Philippine Islands, engaged in the manufacture and sale of cigars and cigarettes in Manila and elsewhere in the Philippine Islands, unlawfully misappropriated to its own use and benefit the word "Isabelas" in its secondary meaning as a distinguishing brand or name of its tobacco products. That the unlawful use of the name "Isabelas" as the distinguishing brand or name of the products of the defendant is calculated to deceive the public into the belief that the goods of the defendant so designated and branded are the goods manufactured by the complainant, and that the use thereof by the defendant will cause it irreparable injury. An injunction was prayed against the defendant, and an accounting sought.

The Court of First Instance found in favor of the complainant because of its exclusive ownership of the Spanish trade-mark, and in favor of the defendant on the question of unfair competition. Upon appeal to the Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands, that court found in favor of the defendant upon both issues, and directed a reversal of the

72.

Opinion of the Court.

judgment below. 33 Phil. Rep. 485. Appeal to this court was sought and allowed upon the ground that the judgment of the Supreme Court was in an action which involved the Paris Treaty of 1898 between the United States and Spain, because it is therein provided that the property rights of private establishments or associations having legal capacity to acquire and possess property, and especially the rights of property secured by copyrights and patents acquired by Spaniards in the Philippine Islands at the time of the ratification of the treaty, shall not be impaired, but shall continue to be respected.

This appeal was perfected before the Act of September 6, 1916, 39 Stat. 726, and is controlled by § 248 of the Judicial Code, which provided that this court should have jurisdiction to review, revise, reverse, modify or affirm the final judgments and decrees of the Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands in all actions, cases, causes, and proceedings in which the Constitution, or any statute, treaty, title, right, or privilege of the United States. is involved.

The contention is that the provisions of this treaty were involved in the decision of the Supreme Court, thereby authorizing this appeal.

By the Treaty of Paris of 1898, Spain ceded to the United States the archipelago known as the Philippine Islands. In Article VIII of the treaty it is provided that the relinquishment or cession, as the case may be, "cannot in any respect impair the property or rights which by law belong to the peaceful possession of property of all kinds, of provinces, municipalities, public or private establishments, ecclesiastical or civic bodies, or any other associations having legal capacity to acquire and possess property in the aforesaid territories renounced or ceded, or of private individuals, of whatsoever nationality such individuals may be." Article XIII provides that "The rights of property secured by copyrights and patents ac