TRADE BOARDS. See article SWEATING in Appendix II.
trade-mark is defined by the Trade-Marks Act, 1905, as meaning a mark used or proposed to be used upon or in connection with goods for the purpose of indicating that they are the goods of the pro prietor of such trade-mark by virtue of manufacture, selection, certification, dealing with, or offering for sale. A trade-mark thus identifies goods as those of a particular trader, or as those of his successors in the business in which they are produced or put forward for sale (Leather Cloth Co. v. American Leather Cloth Co.; Richanls v. Butcher ; Powell's Trade-Mark). A trade mark is a species of property in the sense that the right to use it may be exclusively vested in the person who manufactures or distributes the parti cular goods to which it is applied. But only the person who has the goodwill of the business with which the goods are connected can be the proprietor of the trade-mark. The property in the trade-mark is therefore appurtenant to the goodwill of that business (Hall v. Barrows ; Pinto v. Badman), and, as will be noticed at the end of this article, can only be assigned with the goodwill. A valid trade-niark must comply with certain statutory condi tions as to its character, and it must be registered. The statute law on the subject is now found in the Trade Marks Act, 1905.
What may be a tradc-mark.—By section 9 of the Act it is expressly provided that a trade-mark must consist of or contain at least one of the following essential particulars :—(a) A name of a company, individual, or firm represented in a special or particular manner (the name must be in the nominative case, and not printed in ordinary printing type, Pirie v. Goodall; Gianacli's Trade-Mark); or (b) The signature of the individual or firm applying for registration thereof as a trade-mark or of some predecessor of his in business (the signature must be that actually used by the applicant in the ordinary course of his business); or (c) An invented word or invented words (not indicative of the character or quality of the goods, nor a misspelt known word or combination of words, nor a bonet fide geographical word, Eastman Co.'s Trade-Mark ; Bovril Tradc-Mark ; Magnolia Metal Co.'s
Trade-Mark); or (d) A word or words having no direct reference to the character or quality of the goods, and not being according to its ordinary signification a geographical name or a surname ; or (e) Any other distinctive mark ; but a name, signature, or word or words, other than such as fall within the descriptions in (a), (h), (c), and (d) are not, except by order of the Boards of Trade or Court, deemed a distinctive mark. There may, however, be added to any one or niore of these essential particulars any letters, words, or figures, or combination of letters, words, or figures, or any of them, though in the case of such an addition the person applying for registration must state the essential particulars on which he relies, and must disclaim any right to the exclusive use of the added matter. But there is no need for a disclaimer of the applicopt's own name or its foreign equivalent, or his place of business, for the registration of the name will not affect the right of any other owner of it to use it or its foreign equivalent. And notwithstanding the foregoing conditions, a trade-mark used before the 13th August 1875 can be registered whatever may be its special and distinctive word or words, letter, figure, or combination of letters or figures, or of letters and figures.
A trade-mark must be exclusively connected with some particular goods or classes of goods. But several trade-marks for the same description of goods which resemble each other in their material particulars may be regis tered as a series in one registration, if they differ in respect of (a) the state ment of the goods for which they are respectively used or proposed to be used, or (b) statements of numbers, price, quality, or names of places, or (c) other matter of a non-distinctive character which does not substantially affect the identity of the trade-mark ; or (d) colour. Such trade-marks are known as Associated trade-marks.