Court Opinion

ID: 9651077
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:05:04.391826+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:26:20.040192
License: Public Domain

L. HAND, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I agree that the name “Rogers,” sirnplioffer, cannot he monopolized iiy this complainant and for the reasons given, but I would go further: The “W. A. Rogers” business began in 1894, and it has been continuous over since. In 1001 it was incorporated, only two years after the complainant gathered in six or seven other’ “Rogerses,” and the same year that it took in “C. Rogers & Brothers.” Thereafter the two businesses went along side by side, until this suit was started, and except for the abortive efforts of 1896 and 1898, which were abandoned in 1917, the complainant never uttered a syllable of protest. Indeed although in 1907 it successfully prosecuted an interloper, I can find nothing later which suggested a claim to the name as against any one at all. The business of “W. A. Rogers’? down to 1929 when the defendant bought it, was not trifling or negligible; it was not a competitor one could ignore with impunity. Between 192 L and 3928 it sold about $1,000,000 a year in what may fairly be regarded as “Rogers” brands. The complainant did not object to this and it is entirely clear why it did not object. It had no idea, of making “Rogers” its mark; it was centering all its emphasis upon other marks, principally “1847.” It was only when the defendant, whom it had good reason to fear, entered the field and paid down two million dollars, that it awoke to the dishonest practices of which it had Cor thirty years been the victim. I must own that such grievances do not impress me; if either party has any ground for complaint, the defendant seems to me to be that one. Wrongs endured with complaisance for a generation do not engender my indignation, or move me to intervene. I do not care whether one says that the complainant abandoned the name “Rogers,” simpliciter, and its combinations so far as the W. A. Rogers Company copied them, or whether one says that it is estopped; for the purposes of this suit the result is the same. What we are doing is to protect trade names and marks which, as it seems to mo, have been forfeited, at least as against this complainant, by every canon of law, justice and morals. I hold no. brief for the defendant’s own conduct ; but I apprehend that in suits like this we do not protect the public, but only.redress a private wrong. I ea,n find none that this complainant has suffered.
As my views will not prevail ;I shall not go info the del ails. There are a few things that I should enjoin the defendant from calling its wares, e. g.: “Genuine,” “Famous,” “Celebrated.” These connote a position in the trade which “W. A. Rogers” never held; that is, that the defendant’s wares are more genuine, more famous and more celebrated than the complainant’s. That is misleading-, just as it is misleading for the complainant to say that it is the “genuine” Roger’s, for there is no genuino “Rogers,” though there is an “original,” and on the whole the complainant is that “original.’?. As to the “initial” marks, though I agree that they might stand without any monopoly.of the name “Rogers,” and .though 1 might,agree that originally the “W. A. Rogers” marks were close enough to give ground for complaint, the complainant has lost any right in *76these.as well, quoad this defendant, because •of its long acquiescence and the defendant’s reliance upon it. But it does not seem worth while to go into the evidence to see which of the supposed infringements are old enough to have secured the immunity of age, toleration and action in reliance upon both.