Opinion ID: 1475663
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 19

Heading: The Appellees Had an Infinity of Other Names From Which to Make Their Selection

Text: There is no need for the appellees to appropriate the appellant's fanciful or arbitrary trade name. As was said by the Supreme Court of California in Eastern Columbia, Inc., v. Waldman, supra, 30 Cal.2d at page 270, 181 P.2d at page 867: Under these circumstances it is difficult to find any justification for permitting defendant to use those words at all in his business whether alone or in conjunction with other words. There is no commercial necessity for him to use them. They are not necessary to describe his business or the products he sells such as there might be if they had other than a fanciful meaning with no geographic significance. This thought that a newcomer has an infinity of other names to choose from without infringing upon a senior appropriation runs through the decisions like a leitmotiv. In Florence Mfg. Co. v. J. C. Dowd & Co., supra, 2 Cir., 178 F. at page 75, we find a classical statement of the principle: It is so easy for the honest business man, who wishes to sell his goods upon their merits, to select from the entire material universe, which is before him, symbols, marks and coverings which by no possibility can cause confusion between his goods and those of competitors, that the courts look with suspicion upon one who, in dressing his goods for the market, approaches so near to his successful rival that the public may fail to distinguish between them. And in Coca-Cola Co. v. Old Dominion Beverage Corporation, supra, 4 Cir., 271 F. at page 604: Plaintiff's rights are limited at the most to two words. All the rest of infinity is open to defendant. It will be safe if it puts behind it the temptation to use in any fashion that which belongs to the plaintiff. It has not done so voluntarily, and compulsion must be applied. [16]