Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 5.djvu/156

140 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. In Lawrence Manufacturing Company v. Tennessee Manu- facturing Company i the United States are made to look in the direction of commercial honesty and the position which they ought to occupy in the family of nations and before the world. The court, possibly for the first time, has held up with a strong hand the lamp which Judge Story trimmed a half a century ago, 2 the light of which may have been obscured, but which cannot be extinguished. In this important case the Supreme Court for the first time in its history recognizes and explains the fundamental differences between the piracy of a trade-mark and the prevention of unfair competition in business. In Goodyear Co. v. Goodyear Rubber Company, 3 allusion was made to the existence of a rule whereby " unfair trade " is restrained, but no attempt was made to define it or to interpret the adjudications which illustrate its application and purpose. The lucid and accurate opinion of Chief Justice Fuller estab- lishes a classification which is obviously logical and obviously useful and of value to the public ; and his conclusions are at variance with perhaps not a single well-considered case to be found in the books. The doctrines affecting the protection of technical trade-marks are easily understood ; but the subject of what has come to be known as " unfair competition in business " is much broader and more intricate. Its evolution and development have been charac- terized by a great deal of artificial reasoning and not a little judi- cial remark which has been distinctly arbitrary; but the seminal and underlying doctrine which supports the most recent adjudi- cations is really very old. It is the leaven of a number of the opinions of Lord Eldon ; 4 and it was strongly stated and made the basis of decision by Lord Langdale in cases which are still cited as useful precedents. In Croft v. Day, 5 Lord Langdale said : " No man has a right to dress himself in colors, or adopt and bear symbols, to which he has no peculiar or exclusive right, and thereby personate another person, for the purpose of inducing the public to suppose, either that he is that other person, or that he is connected with and selling the manufacture of such other person, while he is really l 138 U. S. 537. 2 3 story, 458. 8 I28 tj. S. 597. 4 Hogg v. Kirby, 8 Ves. 215 ; Cruttwell v. Lye, 17 id. 335. 5 7 Beav. 84.