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Timestamp: 2019-04-23 21:55:41+00:00

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The first comprehensive text concerning the law relating to trademarks defines its subject as “. . . the name, symbol, figure, letter, form or device, adopted and used, by a manufacturer, or merchant, in order to designate the goods that he manufactures, or sells, and distinguish them from those manufactured or sold by another; to the end that they may be known in the market, as his, and thus enable him to secure such profits as result from a reputation for superior skill, industry or enterprise.”  Most studies concerning the use of trademarks state that the recognition thereof begins with the dictum concerning the infringement of a clothier’s mark during the reign of Elizabeth I, uttered by King’s Bench judge Dodderidge in Southern v. How.  Upton goes so far as to report that “property in trade marks, exclusive and absolute, has existed and been recognized… from the earliest days of our recorded jurisprudence.”  But that is merely a scratch upon the surface of trademark history; few human institutions can boast a more respectable antiquity. Trademark usage dates from the times of our very earliest recorded knowledge.
This paper will attempt to examine (1) the use of trademarks or their functional equivalents in ancient times, (2) the vast amounts of Middle Age guild and municipal legislation dealing with trademarks and the penalties exacted for their infringement, and (3) the origins and development of modern trademark jurisprudence in both common law and Chancery courts up until the last quarter of the nineteenth century when the Anglo-American legal system promulgated statutes regulating the judicial protection of trademarks, the spirit, if not the letter, of such enactments serving as the basis upon which the law today is discerned.
* Student at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Thus the importance of any industry and the quality of the goods it produces can accurately be gauged by the extent to which trademarks are affixed to the goods which that industry manufactures. Our examination must therefore begin with the first of man’s goods which enjoyed extensive markets, the pottery of antiquity.
Techniques necessary for the manufacture of pottery were perfected about five thousand years ago; the earliest pottery of discernable origin was produced during the reign of Chinese Emperor Hoang-To, approximately 2700 B.C., some twelve centuries before the introduction of ceramics to Europe.  These Chinese pots exhibit two types of marks: the name of the period’s Emperor and/or the name of the maker or place of origin. It was probably the Hindus who were responsible for the beginnings of European pottery; substantial commerce between the subcontinent and Asia Minor between 1200-1300 B.C. has been demonstrated by the many emblems affixed to Hindu merchandise found throughout the eastern Mediterranean region. These marks were often simple picture symbols of the craft, rather than personal or imperial designations.
Greek pottery commonly displays pictures representing the adventures of classical heroes, but there also appears a mark on the base of the pots believed to signify the origin of the product. Few examples of Grecian sculpture lack the inscription of the sculptor’s name. On decorated pieces, the name of the decorator is also included.  Kohler reports that beside the maker’s name, cup handles for the use at the Ceramicus of Athens often displayed abstract trademarks in the form of figures of Mercury’s staffs, oil jugs, bees and lions’s heads.  The Bible presents several instances of trademark use.  During Solomon’s reign, the Temple and other structures were constructed by Phoenician skilled builders; the quarry mechanics who prepared the stone for these projects painted unique signs of origin on the stone blocks in vermillion paint to prove their claim to wages.
was penetrated by the same general impulses of trade as today. These manufacturers’ marks are no singularity; they are connected with the same system of marking that is known in modern trade.
… the whole institution in ancient times was no exception; that it was an institution of the first rank, and one which covered the whole territory of the ancient civilized world. It is, however, doubtful whether this institution of commerce ever became a system of established law, and whether it did not rely upon commercial honesty and integrity rather than upon the law.
ing and complex. Inter-urban rivalry was naturally further increased by the civic pride of the municipalities which had grown strong and self-conscious through their several successes in asserting their rights against former rulers.  The quality of the wares produced within the city’s limits was to them a matter that called for regulation. These influences led to the establishment of a standard quality for local products and the use of the municipal mark (usually the coat of arms of the municipality) on all goods made within its boundaries.
Lucien-Brun, in his classic work on the subject of trademarks, states that in France trademarks were regarded as property and protected against infringement by civil remedies.  As early as the thirteenth century, copying of valuable marks became so common and injurious that infringement was made a misdemeanor, in some cases even a felony, and was punished in the barbarous manner of the times.
work. There was also a public stamping after an inspection and approval.
There also are evidences in Scots law concerning trademarks. In an Act of 1487 entitled “The binde of Salmond, and measure thereof,” it is prescribed that every burgh shall have, in addition to hoop irons serving to bind and measure barrels containing salmon, “a burning iron to marke the samin, under the paine of escheit of the barrel un-marked.”  Similar edicts, decrees and town-council legislation concerning trademark infringement are cited ad infinitum in every responsible study of this segment of legal history.
Such warnings appeared to be a common practice. Benedict Hector of Bologna in “Justinus et Florus” warns: “Purchaser, give heed when you wish to buy books issued from my printing office. Look at my sign, which is represented on the title-page, and you can never be mistaken. For some evil-disposed printers have affixed my name to their uncorrected and faulty works, in order to secure a better sale for them.”  Jacobus Badius of Paris faced the same pirating competitors as did his Italian counterparts: “We beg the reader to notice the sign, for there are men who have adopted some title, and the name of Badius, and so filch our labour.”  Literary and publishers’ mark piracy became so prevalent that the Milanese Printer’s Guild declared that “No printer or dealer must use for his sign a token identical with or closely similar to that already in use with an authorized printer or dealer.”  That printers’ marks were regarded as valuable property is evidenced by the lengthy procedures established in many printers’ wills to transfer such marks to their heirs.
The hazards of navigation during the Middle Ages made the use of a private mark of especial value to those merchants whose trade extended beyond the seas. Merchants’ marks were registered, and certificates issued attesting to mark ownership. In the event that goods were lost on a sea voyage and subsequently recovered, it was often necessary to determine the identity of the lost goods by the merchants’ marks affixed to them.
Throughout Europe numerous so-called marks of control or guarantee were affixed by local authorities to certify that the goods bearing them were of a prescribed quality standard. These were used in connection with other marks, and correspond closely to modern inspectors’ stamps on meat, dairy and other perishable commodities. Such control marks were concerned more with regulating the size, weight, price or quality of the product, rather than identifying the individual maker, except to point out on whom the fault lay should the standard not be met.  Not uncommon either during the Middle Ages were regional marks applied to products of a whole district, in distinction to those of a particular town or guild.
When the trade-mark is affixed to articles manufactured at a particular establishment and acquires a special reputation in connection with the place of manufacture, and that establishment is transferred whether by contract or operation of law to others, the right to the use of the trade-mark may be lawfully transferred with it. Its subsequent use by the person to whom the establishment is transferred is considered as only indicating that the goods to which it is affixed are manufactured at the same place and are of the same character as those to which the mark was attached by its original designer.
If the legislature and the courts are thus sedulous to protect the rights of individuals in respect to their inventions, labels, and devices, it would seem to be implied that such individuals should not themselves attempt to allow any imposition upon the public by false and fraudulent use of such labels, devices, or names, or inventions, for the sale of spurious or simulated articles.
But if it be a crime to counterfeit labels, words, or devices previously appropriated to distinguish property, or to vend goods thus stamped, without disclosing the fact to the purchaser, it is equally an offence against the spirit of the law, equally injurious to trade and commerce and equally an imposition upon the public, to palm off spurious goods under cover of genuine labels and devices. Contracts to do this are clearly against public policy and should not be upheld and enforced by the courts.
Fabrique et de Commerce it is noted that “The general rules were almost the same then as now.”  It is believed that no knowledge of these older statutory provisions was possessed by the legislators and judges who applied modern trademark law. This reappearance of such similar doctrine can only be accounted for on the theory that similar commercial conditions have necessitated similar measures of protection and required similar legal institutions.
Why such commentators have failed to take account of the historical evidence is of course a matter of conjecture and beyond the scope of this article.
England exhibit that the Star Chamber and Privy Council as well as the Crown itself by royal proclamation repeatedly intervened, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, to protect individual and collective marks.  Despite the various tendencies toward the crystallization of the modern concepts of the trademark and trademark law, it was not until the beginnings of the eighteenth century that lawyers (or at any rate law-writers and lexicographers) were evidently beginning to think at all in general terms of trademarks and when they did so, their definitions of trademarks indicate a still very considerable uncertainty on their part as to the exact function of a mark and as to the basis of complaint for the misuse of a mark.
off inferior goods by that means, or to draw away customers from the owners of the mark, he might have granted the injunction.  Although Blanchard v. Hill was described a century later by an English judge “as a leading case on the subject,”  and the reasoning of Lord Hardwicke as “the true foundation of the jurisdiction in these cases,”  it appears to have created no contemporary comment (adverse or otherwise) and has either been ignored or repudiated by Anglo-American courts of law and equity for the past century.
It was established most clearly that the defendants marked the goods manufactured by them with the words “Sykes’ Patent” in order to denote that they were the genuine manufacture of the plaintiff; and although they did not themselves sell them as goods of the plaintiff’s manufacture, yet they sold them to retail dealers for the express purpose of being resold as goods of the plaintiff’s manufacture. I think that is substantially the same thing, and that we ought not to disturb the verdict (for the plaintiff).
inferior to those to which the mark in question might rightly be applied, or to prove that he had suffered special damage by the defendant’s acts. In the case of Millington v. Fox  the Lord Chancellor, Lord Cottenham, (without citing any authorities and ignoring Blanchard v. Rill) held that equity would enjoin trademark infringement even though such infringement was without intent to defraud and in ignorance of plaintiff’s ownership of the trademark involved. This decision led by obvious deduction to the recognition of a right of property arising from the use of a trademark.  Thereafter protection of trademarks in equity became based upon a theory of property rights. No such theory was accepted in the common law courts, and in them fraud remained an essential ingredient of a cause of action for the infringement of a trademark down to the date of the amalgamation effected by the Judicature Acts.
tures, to secure to every manufactory, an exclusive right to some mark on its wares, proper to itself.
… And although this offence is one of the most heinous against the manufactures and commerce of this country, being absolutely a species of forgery, and meriting condign punishment, yet there is not one of the states in which impositions and frauds of this nature are properly guarded against, as much as is necessary, and the publick good requires. Hence when a person thus injured, discovers and brings to publick notice the aggressor, he can obtain no redress adequate to the magnitude of the injury he has sustained, although he may go to enormous expense and deal of trouble in the business, as well as a waste of time, and after all is perhaps allowed by a jury, moderate damages by no means equivalent to the loss sustained, much less does it prove a salutory remedy against future offences of the like nature.
A general act of Congress obviating these difficulties, and providing for the prevention of offences of this kind, and for the due punishment of the perpetrators of such infamy and baseness, experience daily convinces me would be of universal utility, and is a very desirable thing in this country.
A typical statement of the early reaction of the American courts toward trademark piracy is contained in the authoritative opinion of Justice Duer of the Superior Court of New York in Amoskeag Manufacturing Company v. Spear decided in 1849.
Note the following related articles, in addition to those cited within this article: Leon E. Daniels, Words Worth Millions - Their Origin and Ancestry, 23 TMR Bull 183 (1928); Harrison Elliott, Watermark Held Unlikely to Have Cryptic Meanings, 37 TMR 211 (1947) and Gerald Ruston, On the Origin of Trademarks, 45 TMR 127 (1955).
1. Francis H. Upton, A Treatise on the Law of Trade Marks, with a Digest and Review of the English and American Authorities 9 (1860). Modern codifiers of trademark law have simplified this to “any word, name, symbol, or device or any combination thereof adopted and used by a person to identify goods made or sold by him and to distinguish them from goods made or sold by others.” Section 1(A) of the Model State Trademark Bill as presented in The United States Trademark Association, State Trademark Registration Manual with Model Bill, page 56 (1966). “[A]ny word, name, symbol, or device or any combination thereof adopted and used by a manufacturer or merchant to identify his goods and distinguish them from those manufactured or sold by others.” Section 45 of the Lanham Act; 15 USC 1127.
2. See discussion infra at page 562ff and note 57. Popham 144; J. Bridgeman 125; Cro Jac 469; 2 Rolle 5; 2 Rolle 29. See explanation of the disagreement among these several reports, infra note 57.
3. Upton, supra note 1, at 10.
4. Edward S. Rogers, Good Will, Trade-Marks, and Unfair Trading 33 (1914).
5. David Caplan and Gregory Stewart, British Trade Marks & Symbols: A Short History and a Contemporary Selection 11 (1966).
6. Singer Manufacturing Company v. Loog (1880), 18 Ch D 395, 412.
7. Abraham S. Greenberg, The Ancient Lineage of Trade-Marks, 33 J Pat Off Soc’y 876, 878 (December, 1951).
8. Samuel Birch, History of Ancient Pottery: Egyptian, Assyrian, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman 12, 17 (1873).
9. Greenberg, supra note 7, at 877.
10. Edward S. Rogers, Some Historical Matter Concerning Trade-Marks, IX Mich L Rev, 29 (Number 1, 1910).
12. Joseph Kohler, Das Becht des Markenschutzes (1884), as reported in Rogers, supra note 10, at 30 and also Birch, supra note 8, at 322, 335.
13. See for example: I Kings 6, 7, 8; Deuteronomy 6:8, 9; Genesis 30:33.
14. Leon E. Daniels, The History of the Trade-Mark, 7 TMR Bull 239, 245 (1911).
15. Daphne Robert Leeds, Trademarks-Our American Concept, 46 TMR 1451, 1452 (1956).
16. Birch, supra note 8, at 519.
17. Bernard Rudofsky, Notes on Early Trademarks and Related Matters, in Egbert Jacobson (ed), Seven Designers Look at Trademark Design 9 (1952).
18. Geoffrey, Roman Pottery Marks (1886), as described in Rogers, supra note 10, at 31.
19. Rogers, supra note 10, at 31.
20. Jacob Larwood and John Camden Hotten, The History of Signboards From the Earliest Times to the Present Day 2 (1866).
21. Daniels, supra note 14, 7 TMR Bull at 246.
22. Kohler, supra note 12, at 38, 39, 41.
23. Leeds, supra note 15, 46 TMR at 1451.
24. Rogers, supra note 10, at 31.
25. Daniels, supra note 14, 7 TMR Bull at 247.
27. Rogers, supra note 10, at 36.
28. Kohler, supra note 12, at 46-48.
29. George Haven Putman, II Books and Their Makers During the Middle Ages 409 (1897).
30. Joseph Lucien-Brun, Les Marques de Fabrique et de Commerce, Introduction (1895).
31. Report of M. de Marafy to the Congress of Industrial Property 83 (1878) as quoted in Rogers, supra note 10, at 33.
32. Lucien-Brun, supra note 30.
33. Kohler, supra note 12, at 50.
34. Rogers, supra note 10, at 34.
35. Lucien-Brun, supra note 30.
36. Greenberg, supra note 7, at 881.
38. W. C. Fairweather, Early Scots Law on Trade-Marks, 36 TMR Bull 45 (1941).
39. Rudofsky, supra note 17, at 21-22.
40. Rogers, supra note 10, at 35.
41. Kohler, supra note 12, at 41.
42. Rogers, supra note 10, at 36.
43. Larwood and Hotten, supra note 20, at 6-7.
44. Putnam, supra note 29, I at 453.
45. Daniels, supra note 14, 7 TMR Bull 249-50.
46. Lucien-Brun, supra note 30.
47. Leon E. Daniels, Trade-Marks-Their Origin and Development, 36 TMR Bull 58, 59 (1941).
48. As quoted in Rogers, supra note 10, at 37.
49. The reason for the ten-year provision (regarded as a dangerous innovation when it was introduced into the English Trade Marks Act of 1875, and from there in modified form, into the United States Statute of February 20, 1905; called the “old mark” section of the English law and the “ten-year proviso” of the United States law) is that it is safe to assume that a mark after a period of ten years of continuous use serves to identify the origin of the goods to which it is affixed. Compare Section 2(f) of the Lanham Act; 15 USC 1052.
50. E.g., Stat 4 Edw IV, c 1; I Rich III, c 8 (II Statutes of the Realm, 404, 486), which referred to these marks as a sign of police regulation.
51. Kohler, supra note 12, at 46-48.
52. Kidd v. Johnson, 100 US 617 (1879).
53. Kohler, supra note 12, at 48.
54. Bloss and Adams v. Bloomer (1857), 23 Barb 604 (NY Sup Ct).
56. Frank I. Schechter, The Historical Foundations of the Law Relating to Trade-Marks 1, 6 (1925).
The next report of Southern v. How was published in 1659 in J. Bridgeman’s Reports, which on page 125 ascribes this case to the Hilary Term, 13 Jac I, and makes no mention of Dodderidge’s dictum.
Volume II of Rolle’s Reports published in 1676 contains two conflicting accounts of Southern v. How. The first of these (2 Rolle 5) reports the case as having been decided 15 Jac I, Hilary Term, and like J. Bridgeman’s Report makes no mention of Dodderidge’s dictum.
The second report (2 Rolle 28) ascribes the ease to 16 Jac I, Trinity Term and is obscure as to just who was bringing the action against the infringing clothier, but believes it was the vendee.
58. See: I Nelson’s Abridgement 38, 17; 3 Bacon’s Abridgement 560 (K) (3d ed.) ; I Viner’s Abridgement 574 (2d ed) ; I Comyn’s Digest 166: Action Upon the Case for a Deceit: 2 Kent’s Commentaries 446, note b (7th ed).
59. Schechter, supra note 56, at 9.
60. Hopkins, Trademarks, Trade Names and Unfair Competition 2 (4th ed 1924), as quoted in Schechter, supra note 56, at 11.
61. Roscoe Pound, Interpretations of Legal History 28 (1923).
62. Schechter, supra note 56, at 123-24.
64. E. R. A. Seligman, Two Chapters on the Mediaeval Guilds of England in American Economic Assn publications, Volume 2, Number 5, page 76 (1887).
65. Conflicting views on this point are presented in Austin P. Evans, The Problem of Control in Medieval Industry, XXXVI Political Science Quarterly 603 (1921).
66. Schechter, supra note 56, at 126.
68. 2 Atk 484 (1742).
69. T. A. Blanco White, Kerly’s Law of Trade Marks and Trade Names 1, 2 (9th ed 1966).
70. Wood, V. C. in Farina v. Silverlock (1855), 24 Law Journal Ch N. X. 632, quoted in Schechter, supra note 56, at 136.
71. Wood, V. C. in Collins Company v. Brown (1857), 3 K & J 423, 428, as quoted in Schechter, supra note 56, at 136 fn 5.
72. St. James Chronicle, December 4, 1771, as quoted in Schechter, supra note 56, at 137.
73. Atkyns and Overall, Some Account of the Worshipful Company of Clock-makers of the City of London 259, as quoted in Schechter, supra note 56, at 137.
74. 3 Doug 293 (1783).
75. (1816). See Robert H. Eden, Treatise on the Law of Injunctions 226, fn (e) (1822).
76. 314 (1821), as reported in White, supra note 69, at 2.
77. (1824) 3B &C 541.
78. (1833) B & Ad 410.
79. (1838) 3 Myl & Cr 338.
80. White, supra note 69, at 4.
81. Massachusetts Private and Special Laws, 1789, e 43, 1, 226 (1805), as quoted in Schechter, supra note 56, at 130-31.
82. Jefferson’s Complete Works, Washington, 1854, VII, 563, reported in the Report of the Commissioners Appointed to Revise the Statutes Relating to Patents, Trade and Other Marks, and Trade and Commercial Names, Under Act of Congress Approved June 4, 1898, Washington, 1902. Hereafter referred to as the “Report of the Commissioners.” Quoted in Schechter, supra note 56, at 131-32.
83. Thompson v. Winchester, Supreme Court of Massachusetts 1837, 19 Pick 214; reported in Report of the Commissioners, supra note 81, at 93. Quoted in Schechter, supra note 56, at 132-33.
84. Taylor v. Carpenter, United States Circuit Court, District of Massachusetts, 3 Story 458; in Report of the Commissioners, supra note 81, at 93.
85. Id at 3 Story 464.
86. Schechter, supra note 56, at 139.
87. 25 and 26 Viet e 88.
88. 38 and 39 Viet 6 91.
89. 16 Stat L 198.
90. Trade Mark Cases, 100 US 82 (1879).
91. 19 Stat L 141.
92. 2 Sandi (NY) Super 599, 605-06 (1849).
93. Hanover Milling Company v. Metcalf, 240 US 403, 412-13 (1915).
94. Benjamin H. Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process 64 (1922).

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