J. WALTER THOMPSON COMPANY, Est. 1864
Our idea, in preparing this little book, is to set forth, in clear and simple language, the main features of the law relating to trade-marks and to illustrate its application by specific examples of well-known trade-marks now in use.
To an advertiser who has had but little experience in registering trade-marks, the law, with a congested mass of precedents surrounding it, seems to be a legal maze.
But its intricacy is more apparent than real. The law is quite clear and explicit when one has the patience and experience in such matters to get to the bottom of it. We have endeavored to write this book in language so clear that any business man will understand it, and we feel sure that it will give any one a good working knowledge of trade-mark requirements.
It has not been our intention to produce an exhaustive treatise on the subject. Such a treatment of the law of trade-marks and its allied subject of unfair trade would require a large volume, and the long and intricate discussion of minor points necessary in a work of that kind would be wearisome and perhaps unintelligible to the lay reader.
Nor have we discussed the origin of the custom of identifying merchandise by trade-marks. This phase of the subject—trade-marks in their historical aspect—is interesting in an academic sense, but it has little or no bearing on the trade-mark situation of to-day.
For further study of the trade-mark law and the allied subject of the law of unfair trade, we advise the reading ofHesseltine's "Law of Trade-Marks and Unfair Trade" (Little, Brown & Co., 1906); and Nims on "Unfair Business Competition" (Baker, Voorhis & Co.). Both of these works are legal in their treatment of the subject and in their phraseology. Another work containing much information on this subject is Clowry Chapman's "Law of Advertising and Sales", in two volumes, published by the author.
J. Walter Thompson Company
J. Walter Thompson
President.