Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-704_4246.pdf
Page Number: 19.0

Cite as:  602 U. S. ____ (2024) 

15 

Opinion of the Court 

established  understanding  that  “[a]  person  may  have  a 
right in his own name as a trade-mark, as against a person 
of a different name.”  Gilman v. Hunnewell, 122 Mass. 139, 
148  (1877);  see  also  Thaddeus  Davids  Co.  v.  Davids  Mfg. 
Co., 233 U. S. 461, 472 (1914) (highlighting persons’ “right 
to use their own name in trade”); Faber, 3 Abb. Pr. (N. S.), 
at 116 (“[T]he maker had the right to put his own name on
his own pencils”).  Relatedly, one could contract for the use 
of another person’s name in his business.  See, e.g., McLean, 
96 U. S., at 249 (explaining that a “physician whose name 
the pills bear . . . sold the right to use the same” to another); 
see also L. E. Waterman Co. v. Modern Pen Co., 235 U. S. 
88,  96  (1914);  Meriden  Britannia  Co.  v.  Parker,  39  Conn. 
450, 453 (1872) (“[T]hey made a contract with the petition-
ers, by which, and by subsequent contracts, the petitioners 
acquired  the  right  . . .  to  manufacture  and  sell  plated
spoons and forks with the name ‘Rogers’ stamped thereon 
as  a  component  part  of  a  trade  mark”).  Such  contracts 
would make little sense if one could use another living per-
son’s name in business at will.  The common-law approach 
to trademarking names thus protected only a person’s right 
to use his own name. 

This common-law understanding carried over into federal 
statutory law.  The first federal trademark law contained a 
requirement that a trademark contain more than merely a 
name.  See Act of July 8, 1870, §79, 16 Stat. 211.  That re-
quirement remains largely intact.  See §1052(e)(4) (prohib-
iting registration of a trademark if it “is primarily merely a 
surname”).  A few decades later, federal trademark law em-
phasized “ ‘[t]hat nothing herein shall prevent the registra-
tion  of  a  trade-mark  otherwise  registerable  because  of  its 
being  the  name  of  the  applicant.’ ”    Act  of  Feb.  18,  1911, 
ch. 113, 36 Stat. 918 (emphasis added).  And, the Lanham 
Act later “incorporat[ed] the principal features of common 
law trademark protection,” thereby “declar[ing] . . . existing