Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-704_4246.pdf
Page Number: 21.0

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

17 

Opinion of the Court 

holder’s reputation.  We have long recognized that a trade-
mark  protects  the  markholder’s  reputation.    See  McLean, 
96  U. S.,  at  254  (explaining  that  a  trademark  “enable[s  a 
mark-holder] to secure such profits as result from his repu-
tation  for  skill,  industry,  and  fidelity”);  see  also  Hanover 
Star Milling Co., 240 U. S., at 412–413, 414; Celluloid Mfg. 
Co. v. Cellonite Mfg. Co., 32 F. 94, 97 (CC NJ 1887) (Brad-
ley, J.).  This protection reflects that a mark may “acquir[e]
value”  from  a  person’s  “expenditure  of  labor,  skill,  and 
money.”  San  Francisco  Arts  &  Athletics,  Inc.  v.  United 
States Olympic Comm., 483 U. S. 522, 532 (1987) (internal
quotation marks omitted); accord, McLean, 96 U. S., at 251. 
Accordingly,  when  a  person  uses  another’s  mark,  “the 
owner is robbed of the fruits of the reputation that he had 
successfully labored to earn.”  Amoskeag Mfg. Co. v. Spear 
& Ripley, 2 Sandf. 599, 606 (NY Super. Ct. 1849).  A per-
son’s  trademark  is  “his  authentic  seal,”  and  “[i]f  another 
uses it, he borrows the owner’s reputation, whose quality no 
longer lies within his own control.”  Yale Elec. Corp. v. Rob-
ertson, 26 F. 2d 972, 974 (CA2 1928) (Hand, J.).  “This is an 
injury, even though the borrower does not tarnish it, or di-
vert any sales by its use; for a reputation, like a face, is the 
symbol of its possessor and creator, and another can use it 
only as a mask.”  Ibid. 

This connection between a trademark and reputation is 
even  stronger  when  the  mark  contains  a  person’s  name. 
“[I]s not a man’s name as strong an instance of trade-mark
as can be suggested?”  Ainsworth v. Walmsley, 1 L. R., Eq. 
518, 525 (1866).  In fact, the English common law of trade-
marks  arose  from  the  fact  that  “those  who  sold  goods  . . . 
that were the fruit of their own labor or craftsmanship [be-
gan to] identif[y] those products . . . with their own names.” 
Pattishall, Constitutional Foundations, at 457.  As we have 
explained, virtually up until the Fourteenth Amendment’s 
adoption, a trademark “really denoted only the name of the 
manufacturer.”  Pattishall,  Two  Hundred  Years,  at  128.