Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 5.djvu/429

RECENT CASES. 413 rangement, is not a trade-mark, but an invention, which must be patented if it is to be monopolized. Therefore, the fact that the manufacturer of a certain article has adopted a bottle of peculiar form does not prevent a rival manufact- urer of the same article from adopting the same kind of bottle, which is in the public market; and the mere mechanical arrangement of bottles in packing is neither an invention nor a trade-mark whose use by others may be resisted. Hoyt v. Hoyt, 22 Atl. Rep. 755 (Pa.). This case places a decided limitation upon the principle on which the courts of various jurisdictions, in cases analogous to trade-marks, have restrained a particular defendant, by reason of his fraud, from using a mark or sign to which the plaintiff, as far as concerns the general public, has no exclusive right. See 4 Harv. Law Rev. 321, and cases there cited; also, 5 Harv. Law Rev. 139. Real Property — Indication — What Constitutes Acceptance. — A street ran through the business portion of a town. The sewer and water com- missioner by authorization of the mayor and council made an excavation into which plaintiff fell and was injured. There was no evidence as to the origin of the street nor as to the length of user nor as to the power of the town author- ities to bind the town; yet it was held that a sufficient dedication and acceptance would be presumed, and that the plaintiff should recover. Town of Salida v. McKinna, 27 Pac. Rep. 810 (Col.). Real Property — Easements — Prescription — Tacking of Different Users. — Defendant's elevated road was operated by cable from 1868 to 1871, and by steam from 1871 to 1888. In 1879 the supports of the track, during the pro- cess of reconstruction, were moved 16 inches nearer plaintiff's building. Defen- dant claimed that a certain portion of plaintiff's right had been lost by contin- uous adverse user on defendant's part for twenty years. Held, that adverse user cannot be divided, and as on the whole the users for a cable road and for a steam road are different, no account will be made of that fractional part of each which is common to both and continuous; the two users will be treated as entirely disconnected, and cannot be tacked. Am. Bank Note Co. v. New York El. R.R. Co., 29 N. E. Rep. 304 (N. Y.). Real Property — Mortgages — Fraud on Creditors — Widow's right of Dower free of Equities. — A, by deed absolute on its face conveyed land to defendant, one of his creditors, partly with a view to secure defendant's debt, partly to defraud the other creditors. After A's death, his widow and his heirs brought a bill to have the deed declared a mortgage. Held, that the heirs, as they claimed through A, were debarred from relief, though themselves inno- cent, by reason of A's fraud, and that the same rule applied to the widow in re- spect to land claimed by inheritance from deceased children; but that in re- spect to the portion which would have come to her by right of dower, she would not be debarred of relief, although she joined in the convevance to B, un- less at the time she had knowledge of the fraud. Kills el al. v. Wilson el al. t 29 N. E. Rep. 401 (Ind.). Real Property — Remoteness — Possibility of Reverter. — A conveyed land to a religious society for so long as the society shall support certain speci- fied doctrines, and when the land is devuted to other purposes, " then the title of said society, or its assigns, shall forever cease, and be forever vested in the fol- lowing-named persons," among them A himself. Held, that this limitation is void for remoteness. That the society takes a qualified or determinable fee, with a possibility of reverter in A. That the possibility of reverter dependent on a condition subsequent is not within the rule against perpetuities, Tobey v. Moore, 130 Mass. 448; French v. Old South Soc, 106 Mass. 479], and a fortiori, this possibility of reverter dependent on a qualified or determinable fee is nut within the rule. First Ch. Soc. of No. Adams v. Boland, 29 N. E. Rep. 524 (Mass.). Real Property — Remoteness — Splitting Contingency. — A testator gave his residuary estate in trust, as to one-fifth share for his son A for life; remainder in fee to such children of A as shall attain twenty-one, and also to such children of any son or daughter of A who might die under twenty-one, as should live to attain twenty-one. The four other one-fifth shares were to be held on similar trusts for the testator's daughters, B, C, D, and E, respectively, and their respective issue. And the testator declared that if any or either of A, B, C, D, and E should die without leaving any lawful issue who should live to attain a vested interest in their respective shares, the share or shares to which such failure