A piano manufacturer by the name of Henshaw placed upon the market a piano called the "Steinberg." It was held by the Court that the name "Steinberg" was an infringement of the name "Steinway," which had been long used as the name of famous pianos.
A trade-mark that has achieved great renown.
In the case of Johnson & Johnson v Bauer & Black (82 Fed. R. 662, reversing 79 Fed. R. 954) it was held that the complainant's mark of a red Greek cross, used on plasters, was infringed by the defendant's mark of a Greek cross with a red circle in the center, containing the letters "B & B", and used on the same class of goods.
A trade-mark adopted for a patented article during the life of the patent, is held to be descriptive of the article, and the right to its exclusive use expires at the expiration of the patent.
The import of this far-reaching trade-mark doctrine is illustrated in the celebrated Singer case.
The Singer Manufacturing Company, when the patents on its sewing machine were about to expire, adopted as a trade-mark the word "Singer" blended with a device. The effect of this action, if the validity of the trade-mark had been sustained, would have been to perpetuate the right to the exclusive use of the word "Singer" as applied to sewing machines. In this event, at the expiration of the patents, any person would have had the right to manufacture Singer machines, but only the Singer Manufacturing Company would have had the use of the name "Singer."
It was held by the courts that the right to use the name "Singer", as applied to machines of this particular design, became public property when the patents expired. The court said, in the case of Brill v Singer Mfg. Co. (41 Ohio St.):—
"A patentee or his assignee, by incorporating into his trade-mark the distinctive name by which a patented machine has become known to the public during the existence of the patent, cannot, after the expiration of the patent, take away from the public the right of using such name. The trade-mark cannot be made a guise for extending the monopoly, or preventing the name from becoming, with the patent, the property of the public."