TRADE MARKS BILL. Report of the Select Committee on Trade Marks Bill and Merchandise Marks Bill. (212.) Two bills on the subject of trade marks were referred to the committee— one prepared in Sheffield, and one by Mr. W. M. Hindmarsh, for the Government. The committee was formed on the 26th of February, and on the 7th March, 1862, it was nominated as follows, viz. :-Mr. Roebuck, Mr. Milner Gibson, Mr. Crum Ewing, Sir Francis Goldsmid, Mr. Attorney-General, Mr. Crossley, Sir Hugh Cairns, Mr. Selwyn, Mr. Alderman Copeland, Mr. Hassard, and Mr. Warner: Mr. Potter and Mr. Moffatt were subsequently added to the committee. The witnesses examined were Mr. Robert Jackson, of Sheffield, saws and files manufacturer; Mr. William Lockwood, of Sheffield, cutler; Mr. Samuel Gardner, steel files manufacturer; Mr. David Ward; Mr. Frederick Thorpe Mappin, steel files manufacturer; Mr. William Brittain, of Sheffield; Mr. George Joseph Rodgers; Mr. William Smith, solicitor, Sheffield; Mr. Arthur Ryland, Chamber of Commerce, Birmingham; Mr. Robert S. Bartlett, needle manufacturer; Mr. J. S. Wright, Birmingham, button manufacturer; Mr. John Jobson Smith, Sheffield, President, Chamber of Commerce; Mr. Matthew Clark, Glasgow, thread manufacturer; Mr. Leonard Edmunds, Clerk of the Patents; Mr. Charles Brook, thread manufacturer; Mr. Bennet Woodcroft; Mr. William Felkin, lace maker and hosiery manufacturer; Mr. James Coats, Paisley, thread manufacturer; Mr. Daniel Sinclair, of Messrs. Wotherspoon and Co.'s, starch and confectionery manufacturers; Mr. George Wilkinson, master cutler, Sheffield; Mr. Michael Hunter, Sheffield; Mr. Bernard Gilpin, edge-tool manufacturer; Mr. John Polson, starch manufacturer, Paisley; Mr. Westley Richards, gunmaker; Mr. Robert Smith, tyre and small wares manufacturer; Mr. John Dale, Mr. George Moffatt, M.P., Mr. Edmund Potter, M.P., Mr. John Dillon, Mr. Samuel Morley, Mr. Thomas C. Coxon, of Messrs. Bass and Co.'s, Mr. George Chater, of Messrs. Gorsvenor, Chater, and Co., Mr. John Travers Smith, Mr. William M. Hindmarsh, Q.C., Mr. L. Heymann, Mr. W. H. Teulon, and Mr. Adolphus Baker. The committee sat thirteen times, and on the 5th of May they agreed to report the evidence to the House. Definition of Trade Mark.—Mr. Jackson, of Sheffield, defined a trade mark as follows:-"A trade mark means the name, emblem, or device used by any person to denote any article of manufacture to be the manufacture, workmanship, or production of such person, and serving to distinguish the products of one manufacturer from those of another. It does not mean a word or name or common denomination, descriptive of quality or quantity." Mr. Ryland said, "My idea of a trade mark is that it is a device used by manufacturers to denote the person by whom, or the place where, the article bearing it was made; so that a trade mark would be the only means of ascertaining that an article had been made by a certain manufacturer; and that not at all involving any idea of the quality or quantity of the article made." Mr. Wilkinson said, " A trade mark is a device to be stamped or impressed upon articles of manufacture, for the purpose of protecting the manufacturer against imitations; or an emblem impressed upon a manufacture for the purpose of denoting that that manufacture has been produced by a certain person." Mr. Morley suggested that the expression "trade mark” should include any device lawfully used by any person to denote any chattel. Existing Law on Trade Marks.-Mr. Hindmarsh stated the law to be as follows:-"I apprehend that the law at present in existence is a law to prevent cheats generally, and not merely to prevent the using or the pirating of trade marks, which is an improper term, except in Hallamshire. The object of the common law is to prevent cheats, whether by the use of fraudulent marks, the forging of names, the using of wrappers of similar colour, or using, perhaps, a combination of contrivances by which one man represents his goods to be the goods of another: that is the sort of thing which it is the object of the law to put down. Sometimes, when taking proceedings, people have urged that they had acquired a right by user to some particular phrase, or expression, or name, or colour; but the courts have always said, more particularly the Court of Chancery, that they had no such right, and all that they had a right to was this, that no other man should by fraud represent his goods to be those of another. That is the principle of the law, as I apprehend, which is in existence, and it applies not merely to the manufacture and sale of goods, but also to such things as omnibuses; and the Court of Chancery has interfered to prevent companies and persons from running omnibuses coloured and lettered, or otherwise marked, with the servants in the same liveries or otherwise, in such a way as to induce the public to believe that they were the omnibuses of another company. The last Master of the Rolls in one case said, as to the words 'conveyance company,' You have no right to that name, or to any other; the law does not recognize the existence of any such right.' That is what is understood to be the law which is in existence at present. 6 "I apprehend that the origin of trade marks, and the value of them, and not only of trade marks, but of many other similar things, was, that they were used by merchants and manufacturers as indicia of the goods being of their manufacture. There are many descriptions of goods as to which the public in general cannot judge as to their quality in any way; and that is more particularly so with regard to cutlery. An ordinary person cannot tell, when he takes up a knife, of what value it is: to his eye it would be equally good if made of cast iron, as of the best shear steel; but he finds, after some practice, that one description of knife answers well, while the other is utterly useless; and in that way the public learn to acquire confidence in the goods of any man who manufactures his goods in such a way as to give satisfaction, as, for example Messrs. Rodgers and Son, in making their cutlery. They have made their goods extremely well for many years, and the public have acquired confidence in them, and their trade mark is, therefore, valuable. "The law provides a remedy by which a person may obtain damages for the imitation of his trade mark, and no doubt presupposes that such a person has adopted a particular mark, or a particular coloured wrapper, or some indicia which indicates those goods to be of his manufacture or merchandise; and having done so, if another man comes in and surreptitiously uses similar marks, so as fraudulently to represent his goods to be the goods of the other, that man is liable to be proceeded against as a cheat, and to be stopped by an injunction from the Court of Chancery.' Fraudulent Trade Marks.-Mr. William H. Brittain gave evidence on the frauds committed by German manufacturers, as follows: In Prussia, and many of the German States, I have seen articles bearing the names of the most respectable Sheffield houses, and their corporate marks, and sold as genuine, which were of bad quality, and which must inevitably injure the reputation of the manufacturers whose names they bore. The practice of marking the names of Sheffield manufacturers, and using their corporate marks, is so common in Remscheid and the neighbourhood, that I believe there are scarcely any manufacturers of files, edge tools, or saws, there, who use exclusively their own marks. In reference to our corporate mark, a manufacturer there once said to me, "That is struck millions of times in Remscheid." Another said, "That is our mark as well as yours.' In the offices and warehouses of the Remscheid manufacturers I have seen files marked with our name which were never made in Sheffield, and labels in imitation of those used by us, several times. In August 1860, a merchant in Hanover told me that he had just had a file manufacturer offering files marked with our name, about 20 per cent. cheaper than we could supply him with them. In the same month a man in Bremen showed me some files in his office, manufactured by a house in Remscheid, and sold by him with our name and corporate mark, imitated very exactly. The labels were not a very good imitation. On the 2nd of October in the same year, a manufacturer of files near Remscheid showed me files cut but not hardened, marked with our name and corporate mark. Those files were manufactured by him; he said they were for the German market, and that without our mark it would not be easy to sell them. He also told me what marks he used for one or two other countries. These were the names of the Sheffield manufacturers of the best repute in those markets. In December last, a merchant in Hamburgh showed me a list of prices of a Prussian manufacturer; I found from that, that he supplied files marked with our name and corporate mark, and edge-tools marked with the name and corporate mark of Messrs. Ward and Payne, the Sheffield manufacturers of those articles, the best known in the German market. From the Sheffield price list he had offered to deduct a very large discount from those files. Then again in January last, I was shown in Berlin, by a merchant there, some parcels of saw files: they were not of good quality, but they were marked "W. Hall, 2865." The labels were a bad imitation. I was in Remscheid in February, and I called upon a merchant there, who, on seeing the name on my card, reached down several parcels of files from the shelves, in his warehouse, and told me by whom they were manufactured; he laughed when he read aloud from the label," none are genuine but those marked W. Hall, 2865."" Another manufacturer, in the same town, showed me his order book, and, in one page of it, there was an order containing a few dozens of files marked with our name, and, observing that I noticed it, he said, "You see we are forced to send a few files marked with your name, but we do not make so many of them as most of the manufacturers here, because our trade is chiefly in a market where your files are not sold-Russia. On that account we generally send files with our own name. I noticed in the warehouse, there, files marked with the name of the Sheffield manufacturer with the best reputation in the Russian market, mentioned by him. I believe that the greater number of the manufacturers of saws, files and edge tools, in Remschied and the neighbouring towns, regularly mark the names of the Sheffield manufacturers whose goods are in the best repute in the country from which they receive the order. The names used are different for ་ Spain, France, Germany and Russia. That which commands the best price and the readiest sale is used, according to the reputation enjoyed by the various Sheffield houses in those countries; and I believe that this is almost invariable. The goods which bear the Sheffield marks are generally of a quality inferior to that of those which are marked with the real names of the manufacturer, and this must undoubtedly be detrimental to the interests of the Sheffield manufacturers. A file maker in Rhenish Prussia once said to me, "We make files of three qualities; the first we mark with our own name, and the third with yours." 66 66 Upon the same subject, Mr. R. Jackson, of Sheffield, showed a file marked Bedford," and made in Prusssia. His nephew residing in Prussia said, "These marks, and that of Mottram and Sons, are what sell here." He further says, "In files the Germans have qualities much cheaper than the one I quote, which, however, is the quality which sells here, and of which I send you samples. In this place there are now not many German files with our mark, from the fact that our agents are at the same time agents for Luckhaus and Gunther, which house does the principal business here." That is a Remscheid house, and having appointed them our agents, they do not buy any German files. "The pocket-knife mark comes also largely from Germany of a very common quality. Large quantities of needles marked Hemming, E. Guard, &c., as also Patey's brown Windsor soap, come largely from Germany, counterfeited." I have handed in I think, a label of Patey's soap. The German agents here have a full assortment of English labels, so that their customers can select any mark and label they wish. I enclose herein a few of these labels. There is no doubt, whatever, that the sale of these fraudulent goods is of great injury to the reputation of Sheffield makers. No sooner does a good article obtain a preference in this market than it is counterfeited by the Germans. Nevertheless, should you succeed in stopping this piracy, the Germans will still continue to sell many files and tools in this country in consequence of their cheap prices, but English makers will at least have the satisfaction of knowing that the good or bad reputation of their goods will then depend upon the quality. I have here an extract from another letter in August 1855:—"I have repeatedly given my opinion to the Remscheid merchants respecting the counterfeiting of marks; this practice is the rule, and not the exception in that town, and there is not a house in that town that will not do it whenever its customers require. The makers which principally strike our mark on files are Falkenrath and Co., and Gottlieb, Kartz, Courts, who make for the Spanish merchants; Luckhaus and Gunthers, Tillman Frères, and others. I enclose two labels used in Remscheid for Hall's files, and Ward and Payne's tools. These two marks are for the German market, and can be seen in every manufactory." Then there is another extract of the 30th of October 1856 :-"The piracy of marks in the neighbourhood of Remscheid and Solingen continues as largely as ever at J. D. Schwarte's manufactory, Solingen. I saw him wrapping up razors marked G. B., J. Barber, Rodgers, and several other marks. He has exact copies of the wrappers and everything complete. Last year, when I appointed Friederichs and Kluft as our agents, I, of course, stipulated that they should not sell any German goods, and I now hear that Courts, who makes files for Luckhaus and Gunther, does not now mark our name for them. This is something, but, as a rule, the Remscheid makers mark their goods with any name their customer wishes. There are now also many large machine maker's |