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![handle is hein.slavery/ssactsengr0910 and id is 1 raw text is: 1H.&M. 20. THE AMERICAN LEATHER CLOTH COMPANY (LTD.) 123
Mr. Rolt. That was a case of close imitation, and the Plaintiffs had a right as
executors representing the estate.
2d. There is really no imitation; our cloth is not re-[280]-presented to be
Crocketts'; our trade mark is perfectly distinct, and not more like that of the Plaintiffs
than necessarily arises from the nature of the business.
3d. This is one of the grossest deceptions on the part of the Plaintiffs which has
ever been attempted. The patent never was intended for anything except a blind.
The unpatented article has been most successful; the patented article is not only no
improvement, but it has been practically unused. Then the Plaintiffs, by the use of
this stamp, which untruly asserts unpatented goods to be patent goods, have extracted
from a number of persons a higher price than their wares could otherwise have
commanded ; and their only defence for this conduct is that the deception is so gross
that it could not deceive any but the most gullible. If that were so it would be no
defence, but it is not so; you cannot impute knowledge of the peculiarities of tanned
cloth to all purchasers.
4th. The Plaintiffs have not acquired any right to use the name of Crocketts as
distinguished from International Company. The right, whatever it may have been,
which they obtained from that company would not give them an exclusive right as
against the other partners in the expired firm of Crocketts & Co. Giandonati swears
that he never assigned his rights to use the name either to the International Company
or the Plaintiffs. The Crockett Co. in America use the name in defiance of the
Plaintiffs, and send their goods over here for sale.
[THE VICE-CHANCELLOR to Mr. Dickinson. The only difficulty I have is that you
have deceived the public by stamping cloth, which is neither tanned nor patented,
with a mark which asserts it to be both. You may confine your reply to the question
whether I ought not to act upon the principle of Flavel v. Harrison (ubi sup.).]
[281] Mr. Dickinson, in reply. The evidence nowhere says that any of the
witnesses went to the Plaintiffs and asked them for leather cloth, and that on being
handed the first quality cloth they consented to give a larger price for the same article
than they would have given had they known that the article was not patented, or that
they gave Plaintiffs a larger price than they would have given to a vendor of unpatented
cloth ; and if they merely mean that they purchased the Plaintiffs' article rather than
that of other manufacturers because it was a better article, and that they attributed
that superiority to its being patented, that is not a fraud on anyone ; and where
persons are found to assert, as two gentlemen do, that they, wholesale dealers, gave
a larger price for an article merely because they thought it was patented, when they
could have got another, unpatented, article at a lower price which would have suited
them as well, that is not worthy of belief. A patent by creating a monopoly raises
the price ; but if it be known that there is no monopoly the patent will have no such
effect.
That the patent was not a mere trick is clear from the evidence that the London,
Brighton and South Coast Railway will not have the untanned cloth.
July 8. VICE-CHANCELLOR Sir W. PAGE WOOD. The question raised in this
case has come before me on several occasions, on all of which it has been very fully
and ably discussed, and never more so than in this suit, in which some points of
considerable importance are involved.
A firm of J. R. & C. P. Crockett, who seem to have been the inventors in America
of the manufacture known as leather cloth, employed a firm at West Ham as their
agents [282] for the manufacture and sale of the article. After a time certain
changes took place in the constitution of Messrs. Crockett's firm, and I take it to be
proved, on the part of the Defendants, that Mr. Giandonati, as representing the
London house of which he was a member, became a partner in the American firm, and
continued in that position during part of the years 1854 and 1855.
In the latter year Messrs. Crockett dissolved the existing partnership and, in
conjunction with some other persons, formed a company which was duly incorporated
in the month of October 1855, according to the American law, by the name of the
Crockett International Leather Cloth Company. Shortly after this Mr. C. P. Crockett
came to England armed with a power of attorney from the American company, with](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.slavery/ssactsengr0910&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)