40 Minn. 243 | Minn. | 1889
Lead Opinion
This case stands on a demurrer to the complaint. The only ground of demurrer necessary to consider is that the complaint does not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action. Whatever may be said or thought of the conduct of the defendants, in the matter of honesty and good morals, in using the peculiar symbol adopted by the plaintiff and those it represents, to indicate the goods manufactured by them, the case must be decided on considerations of strict legal right of the plaintiff in that symbol as a thing of property.
The right in trade-marks, or the exclusive right to use certain symbols or devices placed upon goods offered for sale, is property. Hence the law affords a remedy to the owner against one who violates the right. A trade-mark consists of a word, mark, or device adopted by a manufacturer or vendor to distinguish his productions from other productions of the same article. Hostetter v. Fries, 17 Fed. Rep. 620. The theory on which the right to it as property is based, is that a man may have acquired a reputation for excellence in the manufacture or preparation of a certain article for sale, which reputation may be the source of profit to him'. In the enjoyment of this reputation, and of the benefit and pecuniary advantages thereof, he ought to be protected as he ought to be and is in the advantages of the good-will of a business established by him; and so that the purchasing public may know the origin of such articles when offered for sale, and that they are of his manufacture or preparation, he may adopt and place on them, as the index of their origin, some device or symbol not used by others upon similar articles, which, by such adoption and by use in connection with his articles, comes to be known as representing that the articles on which they are placed are made or prepared by him, just as his signature to a business paper is an assurance to others that he executed it. It has, indeed, been likened to his business autograph. The wrong for which a remedy is given consists in misrepresenting to the public, by the use of his trademark, goods or wares of another as having been made by the true owner of the mark, and thereby depriving him to a greater or less extent of the benefit of the good-will of his establishment, and the reputation that he has given the articles made by him. Stokes v. Landgraff, 17 Barb. 608.
It is essential that the symbol or device shall be adopted to dis
Apply the foregoing definition and essentials of a legal trade-mark to the facts of this case, and it is apparent that the device in question cannot be a trade-mark, and the right to use, as such right is shown .by the complaint, is not property, but a mere personal privilege; or, rather, the use of it on cigars i's only an advertisement of the fact that the person using it is a member of one of the Cigar-Makers’ Unions. Clearly, to indicate what person, firm, or corporation made the cigars in any box on which the mark is placed, is not the purpose of its adoption and use. Its purpose is only to indicate membership in the union. The complaint claims for the international .and local unions the right to the trade-mark, and the right to confer the privilege of using it on those they admit to membership; but it does not appear that they were ever, as unions, engaged in manufacture or trade, or that they were formed for any such purpose. The case comes just to this: The cigar-makers have formed themselves into associations, and, to secure to the members whatever benefit in their business the fact of membership may give them, they
Order reversed.
Dissenting Opinion
(dissenting.) While I assent to the general rules of law regarding the rights of property in trade-marks and labels as laid down in the opinion of the court, yet it seems to me that they are not correctly applied to the facts of this case. It appears from the complaint that the Cigar-Makers’ Union is an association of