Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 12.djvu/269

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249
HARVARD LAW REVIEW.
249

THE DECEPTIVE USE OF ONE'S OWN NAME. 249 under any other title so as to represent that the defendant's brew- ery was the plaintiff's brewery, and from selling any ale or beer not the plaintiff's under the names " Stone Ales," or " Stone Ale," or in any way so as to induce the belief that such ale or beer was of the plaintiff's manufacture. In the course of his opinion Lord Herschell says " The respondents are entitled to ask that a rival manufacturer shall be prevented from selling his ale under such a designation as to deceive the public into the belief that they are obtaining the ale of the respondents, and he ought not the less to be restrained from doing so, because the practical effect of such restraint may be much the same as if the person seeking the injunction had a right of property in a particular name." Reddaway v. Banham,^ is an even more striking case. The plaintiff was the manufacturer of " Reddaway's Camel Hair Belt- ing " and for many years had succeeded in preventing rival makers of belting from using the name " Camel Hair," all parties assum- ing that as applied to belting it was a fancy name. The defendant Banham stamped his belting ** Camel Hair Belting " with no other name or distinguishing feature. Reddaway applied for an injunc- tion and, to every one's surprise, the defendant succeeded in prov- ing at the hearing that his belting and also the plaintiff's was chiefly made of camel's hair so that the name was not fanciful or arbitrary, and the defendant insisted that he used it simply to describe his product truthfully and correctly. The case was left to a jury to find answers to certain questions and they found as follows: — " Q. I. Does camel hair belting mean belting made by the plain- tiffs as distinguished from belting made by other manufacturers? " A. Yes. " Q. 2. Or does it mean belting of a particular kind without reference to any particular maker? •'A. No. " Q. 3. Do the defendants so describe their belting as to be likely to mislead purchasers and to lead them to buy the defend- ants' belting as and for the belting of the plaintiffs? " A. Yes. " Q. 4. Did the defendants endeavor to pass off their goods as and for the goods of the plaintiffs so as to be likely to deceive purchasers? 1 [1896] App. Cas. 199.