Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/294

 282 FEDBBIL REPORTER. �plaintiff, there is no violation of the plaintiff's trade-mark or name. While the courts are prompt to protect the property rights of any skilled person in his trade-mark or name, whereby he may have in the market the benefit of his skill and reputation, they must also guard against every effort to secure a monopoly not arising therefrom. When a market- able product is publidy known or designated by a generie name, no one should be permitted to shut out ail just compe- tition by claiming the exclusive right to use that name. If there is a peculiar excellence, real or supposed, in his manu- facture, he can establish by his trade-mark or name the right to protection against the piracy thereof; but he cannot go further and insist that, independant of his personal skill or manufacture, he can cover by his trade-mark or name what- ever may properly distinguish the common article which every one has a right to make or vend. �Fifth. Inasmuch as the word "Singer" indicates a machine of peculiar mechanism, and every one has a right to make such a machine, the word "Singer" attaehed to such machines is common property. �Sixth. The distinctive names and deviees of the plaintiff corporation were not used by the defendant, and no one of ordinary intelligence could suppose that the " Stewart" manu- facture was the manufacture "of the plaintiff. Each had its distinctive and detailed names and devices, so that there was no probability that the machine made by one would be mis- taken for the manufacture of the other. �These views dispose of the case; yet it is important to remark that the plaintiff is seeking, after the expiration of one or more patents, to perpetuate a monopoly under the guise of a trade-mark. The propositions involved have un- dergone so much judicial investigation in transatlantio and cisatlantic courts that a summary disposai of the question may seem inadequate to the exigency of the case ; yet each of said cases would show, if properly analyzed, that the gen- erai rule is admitted by ail. �There are many technical objections interposed with respect to evidence offered ; yet, giving the objector the largest bene- ��� �