Opinion ID: 1475663
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: The Law of Unfair Competition is Broader Than the Law of Trademarks

Text: The appellant, however, does not bottom its complaint solely upon the appellees' alleged violation of its property right in the trade name The Stork Club. It also alleges that the appellees have been guilty of unfair competition by using the confusingly similar name, Stork Club, and related insigne of a stork standing on one leg and wearing a high hat. Before attempting to evaluate this phase of the appellant's case, it will be well to bear in mind that the reach of the law of unfair competition is greater than that of the law of trademarks. In Hanover Star Milling Co. v. Metcalf, 240 U.S. 403, 412, 413, 36 S.Ct. 357, 360, 60 L.Ed. 713, the court said: Courts afford redress or relief upon the ground that a party has a valuable interest in the good will of his trade or business, and in the trademarks adopted to maintain and extend it. The essence of the wrong consists in the sale of the goods of one manufacturer or vendor for those of another. [Cases cited.] This essential element is the same in trademark cases as in cases of unfair competition unaccompanied with trade-mark infringement. In fact, the common law of trademarks is but a part of the broader law of unfair competition. [Cases cited.] Common-law trademarks, and the right to their exclusive use, are, of course, to be classed among property rights. ([In re] Trade-Mark Cases, 100 U.S. 82, 92, 93, 25 L.Ed. 550, 551); but only in the sense that a man's right to the continued enjoyment of his trade reputation and the good will that flows from it, free from unwarranted interference by others, is a property right, for the protection of which a trademark is an instrumentality. As was said in the same case ([100 U.S. 82], at page 94 [25 L.Ed. 550]), the right grows out of use, not mere adoption. The principle was recognized by this court in Phillips v. Governor & Co., etc. 9 Cir., 79 F.2d 971, 974. [3]