330 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. on his own merits. In V® Edrard c. Nicolas Edrard, Dulloz, 1879, Cours d'Appel, p. 100, both the plaintiff and the defend- ant were manufacturers of pianos. The defendant placed his own name on his pianos, so that they were mistaken for those of the plaintiff. The court held that every man has a right to use his own name in his business, although he must not use it so as to usurp, by a fraudulent confusion, the advantages of the credit and rep- utation of another already established under that name, and the courts have the right to prescribe the measures necessary to avoid the fraudulent confusion which would result in such use. Here the court prescribed on what parts of the pianos the names (Christian as well as surname) of the defendant should appear, the size of the letters, and ordered that the name of his residence, "Mulhouse," should be used in connection with his own name, so as to distinguish him from the plaintiff. In Chaize c. Fromentelle ^ the parties were tobacconists in the same neighborhood. The plaintiff's sign read, "La Civette." The defendant's read, "A la Nouvelle Civette." Both in this case and in a similar one where the sign was *'A la Civette de la Rue de Rivoli," the plaintiff had judgment for the removal of the objection- able sign. In Lebat v. Partongue, i Blanc, 709, the Imperial Court of Paris held that the color of a sign and its general aspect are considered as sufficiently distinctive to be respected. These French cases are indexed under the titles of "Concur- rence Deloyale" and "Propriety Industrielle," a fact interesting as indicative of the principles on which the courts go. After having looked over a large number of cases in the original reports, a fair statement of these principles seems to me to be this: That a man shall not be restrained from using any words or signs to which he has a right, unless he uses such words or signs in unfair compe- tition with one who has a prior right to the same or similar words or signs; that all competition which the court sees to be unfair and likely to cause confusion in the mind of the public and injury to the lawfully established trade of the plaintiff shall be re- strained, and that the court will order such changes in the objec- tionable features of the competition as will put an end to the fraud. The present article was suggested by two cases which have come up lately in this State before single justices on bills for an injunc-
- II Annales, 350.
