Bill in Equity brought by the complainant to restrain the respondent from using in any manner in connection with his business of manufacturing and vending hats the name of “Harson,” and from maintaining upon the windows of his store, situate at the corner of Union and Weybosset streets, in the city of Providence, the name of “Harson,” and from using said name for the purpose of advertising.
Key passage — most relied on by later courts
““No person can acquire a right to use his surname as a trade-mark or trade-name to the exclusion of others bearing the same surname. Unless, therefore, the signs, labels, and other advertisements of the respondents are such, independently of the use of the name ‘Harson,’ as to deceive the public into' the belief that they are buying the goods of the complainant when they are buying the goods of the respondents, the complainant has no ground of complaint.” (italics supplied)”
Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know
Decided 1900-05-16
How this case has been cited
Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently March 1964
5 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
¶1
We do not think that the circumstances relied on by the complainant as disproving the partnership between the respondents are sufficiently convincing to outweigh the positive testimony of the respondents and other corroboratory evidence to that fact.
¶2
(1)
No person can acquire a right to use his surname as a trade-mark or trade-name to the exclusion of others bearing the same surname. Unless, therefore, the signs, labels, and other advertisements of the respondents are such, independently of the use of the name “Harson,” as to deceive the public into the belief that they are buying the goods of the complainant when they are buying the goods of the respondents, the complainant has no ground of complaint. The principal point of resemblance between the signs,, labels, and advertisements of the complainant and those of the respondents consists in the prominence given to the name “Harson.” In view of the fact that the respondent Harson has the right to use that name, we do not think that the complainant is entitled to complain of the mere prominence given to it, the signs, labels, and advertisements being quite unlike in other respects.
¶3
Though the testimony shows that in some instances persons have confounded the places of business of the complainant and the respondents, the confusion appears to have been due rather'to the use of the name “ Harson” than to any resemblance between the signs, labels, and advertisements.
¶4
Our conclusion is, therefore, that the bill should be dismissed.
