local bar association throughout the country, to be elected or appointed in such manner and for such terms as each bar association shall respectively determine."

The Conference elected the following officers and the following members of the council:

Officers: Stiles W. Burr, Chairman, St. Paul, Minn.; Clarence N. Goodwin, Vice-Chairman, Chicago, Ill.; Julius Henry Cohen, Secretary, 111 Broadway, New York, N. Y.; Nathan W. MacChesney, Treasurer, Chicago, Ill.

Council: Elihu Root, New York, N. Y. (3 years); Moorfield Storey, Boston, Mass. (1 year); Charles A. Boston, New York, N. Y. (3 years); Thomas J. O'Donnell, Denver, Colo. (4 years); Thomas W. Shelton, Norfolk, Va. (4 years); William H. H. Piatt, Kansas City, Mo. (2 years); William V. Rooker, Indianapolis, Ind. (1 year); William J. Fitzgerald, Scranton, Pa. (2 years).

A copy of the report of the Committee on State Bar Organization, which was approved by the Conference at St. Louis, has been sent to all state and local bar associations, with the request that each state and local bar association consider the report and take action thereon. A copy of the brief prepared by the Special Committee on What Constitutes Practice of the Law and What Constitutes Unlawful and Improper Practice of the Law by Laymen or Lay Agencies has also been sent to all state and local bar associations and attention has been called to the resolution adopted with reference to the definition contained in the brief.

JULIUS HENRY COHEN, Secretary.

PROCEEDINGS

OF THE

SECTION OF PATENT, TRADE-MARK AND COPYRIGHT LAW

The Section met in annual meeting at the Hotel Statler, St. Louis, Missouri, August 25, 1920, at 2 P. M., the Chairman of the Section, Wallace R. Lane, of Chicago, Illinois, presiding.

The Chairman offered a set of by-laws, which were read in full to the Section. Edward S. Rogers, of Illinois, moved an amendment to the by-laws as proposed, which amendment was adopted. Thereafter, the by-laws as amended were, upon motion of James A. Carr of St. Louis, Missouri, adopted by the Section.

Chairman Lane then appointed Howard G. Cook, J. J. Gravely and Edwin B. H. Tower a Nominating Committee to nominate officers of the Section and members of the Council for the coming year.

The Chairman then submitted proposed report of the Section on Patent, Trade-Mark and Copyright Law to the American Bar Association in the form appearing in the July, 1920, issue of the JOURNAL, pages 505 to 507, inclusive.

After discussion of the report, Charles E. Brock, of Ohio, moved that the proposed report as read by the Chairman, together with recommendations therein contained be approved and adopted.

Robert H. Parkinson, of Illinois, then moved to amend the motion of Mr. Brock by adding thereto the following:

Resolved, First: That we urge prompt legislation increasing the force, salaries and equipment of the Patent Office; but regard as unnecessary and inexpedient the proposed legislation concerning compensation for infringement and that for separating the Patent Office from the Department of the Interior.

"Second: That in our judgment no legislation is desirable in the direction of substituting a special court of patent appeals for the Appellate Jurisdiction now existing, for reasons stated in the Reports adverse to such legislation submitted by the standing committees of this Association on Patent, Trade-Mark

and Copyright Law in 1918 and 1919, respectively, published in the July issue of The American Bar Association Journal for such years, in which reports we concur."

The amendments proposed by Mr. Parkinson were adopted, and thereafter the original motion, as amended, was carried, and the report of the committee, as amended, was ordered to be submitted to the Association.

Amasa C. Paul, of Minnesota, thereupon delivered his address, entitled "Unfair Competition and Its Late Developments."

(The Address follows these minutes, page 400.)

Edward S. Rogers, of Illinois, thereupon read his address, entitled Some Suggestions Concerning a Trademark Registration Act."

(The Address follows these minutes, page 412.)

The Nominating Committee thereupon submitted the following nominations:

Chairman of the Section, Amasa C. Paul. Vice-Chairman, Charles E. Brock of Cleveland. Secretary, Horace Van Everen, of Boston. Treasurer, James H. Thurston, Providence, R. I.

Members of the Council: Otto R. Barnett, of Chicago, one year; James A. Carr, St. Louis, two years; Melville. Church, Washington, three years; Wallace R. Lane, Chicago, Ill., four years.

The officers so nominated were thereupon elected.

There being no further business, the Chairman declared the Section adjourned sine die.

UNFAIR COMPETITION AND ITS LATE

DEVELOPMENTS.

BY

AMASA C. PAUL,

OF MINNESOTA.

The right of a manufacturer or seller of commercial articles to appropriate to his exclusive use, as a trade-mark, a word or symbol to indicate that the articles have originated with or been. selected by him, has long been recognized, and in the United States, Great Britain and many other countries, legislation has been in force for many years providing for the registration of such marks.

It has also long been recognized that a manufacturer or trader who has acquired, by adoption and use, a suitable trade-mark, has a property right therein, and that he is entitled to protection in its exclusive use because it is his property. It has also been recognized that the public has an interest in the protection of trade-marks in order that purchasers and consumers of commercial articles may not be misled or defrauded into buying articles other than those they desire and intend to purchase.

In Upton on Trade-Marks it is said that "property in trademarks, exclusive and absolute, has existed and been recognized as a legal possession, which may be bought and sold and transmitted, from the earliest days of our recorded jurisprudence."

While recognizing property in trade-marks, courts of equity at first refused to interfere by injunction for their protection. In 1742 Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, in Blanchard vs. Hill, refused an injunction to restrain the defendant from making use of the "Great Mogul" as a trade-mark upon cards. In denying the motion for an injunction the Lord Chancellor said:

"In the first place, the motion is to restrain the defendant from making cards with the same mark which the plaintiff has appropriated to himself, and, in this respect, there is no foundation for this court to grant such an injunction. Every particular trader has some particular mark or stamp; but I do not know any instance of granting an injunction here to restrain one

trader from using the same mark with another, and I think it would be of mischievous consequence to do it."

In 1816 an injunction was granted to restrain a manufacturer from using, upon blacking, labels in imitation of those employed by the plaintiff. In other cases, in England and in the United States, the same practice was adopted both as to labels and trade-marks, and it soon became a well established doctrine that the exclusive property of the owner of a trade-mark is entitled to the protection which the highest powers of the courts can furnish. The power of the court, in such cases, is exercised both to do individual justice and to safeguard the interests of the public.

"The right of property in trade-marks has come to be recognized as of immense and incalculable value. Trade-marks, it has been truthfully said, are the only means by which the manufacturer and the merchant are enabled to inspire and retain public confidence in the quality and integrity of things made and sold, and the only means by which the public is protected against the frauds and impositions of the crafty and designing who are always alert to appropriate to themselves the fruits of the reputations of others."

In restraining by injunction the passing off by one dealer of his own goods as those of the goods of a competitor, the jurisdiction of a court of equity is in aid of the legal right and is founded on the protection of property from irreparable damage. A court of equity in such cases acts on the same principle upon which it interferes in other cases in protecting legal rights to property.

While a wide range is necessarily permitted to a manufacturer or dealer in the selection and adoption of a trade-mark, it was realized at an early date that certain limitations upon this power of selection must be made or otherwise the first adopter, for trade-mark purposes, of words that should rightfully be open to general use might monopolize business to which he was not entitled and seriously interfere with the freedom of commerce.

Following this rule the courts, at an early date, refused to recognize as valid trade-marks, geographical names; descriptive words and personal names. Marks designating patented articles were also held to become dedicated to the public upon the expiration of the patents upon the articles to which they were applied.