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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
Service Station for Piano and Player Buyers.
T least one piano department has taken a leaf from the book
A
of the automobile manufacturer and dealer and installed a
"service station'' for the convenience and accommodation of its
patrons. The service station in question has been opened in con-
nection with the piano department in the Philadelphia store of N.
Snellenburg & Co., and has for its object the promotion of satis-
faction on the part of purchasers of pianos long after the instru-
ments have been placed in the homes and paid for.
The service station will be under the direction of a competent
and experienced young lady who will call up every purchaser of a
piano or player-piano at regular intervals and inquire as to the con-
dition of the instrument and the manner in which it is giving satis-
faction. If there is anything wrong with the physical structure of
the piano or player an expert will be dispatched from the store to
look over the instrument and make necessary repairs or adjust-
ments. If there is some question regarding the operation of the
player-piano a competent representative will come from the store
for the purpose of furnishing desired instruction and thus enabling
the purchaser to get the proper service from the instrument.
The operation of the service station will be watched with in-
terest by the progressive members of the piano trade and the prob-
abilities are that after its success is proven similar stations will make
their appearance in other sections of the country. Service to cus-
tomers, even after the pianos have been fully paid for, has been
considered good business by a number of the more successful houses
from the simple fact that a satisfied customer is about as good an
advertisement and business booster as a piano merchant can pos-
sess. To organize a permanent service station, designed and
operated solely for the purpose of keeping in touch with and aiding
customers, has been viewed by most piano houses as tending strongly
toward the ideal and a trifle too expensive and uncertain for practi-
cal purposes. The Snellenburg plan of "beating the customer to
the complaint" should prove a decidedly profitable proposition cov-
ering expense with actual sales thus influenced.
The Deceptive Use of Personal Names.
T
HE deceptiveuse of personal names has been evidenced in vari-
ous lines of trade. In this'connection E. S. Rogers, writing
in a recent issue of Printers' Ink, says:
Every man's name is his own. Me has a right to go into any
lawful business and he has a right to use his own name in connec-
tion with it. These rights, of course, the law must recognize.
Hence it is. that personal names are not sanctioned as technical
trade-marks. A technical trade-mark right is exclusive, and to
give to one man who may bear a certain name the right to exclude
others, who may also bear the name, from all use of it would be
unconscionable. But, all rights are coupled with corresponding obli-
gations, and whether it be his own name or any other thing that
he owns a man must so use it .as not unnecesg^ily to damage his
neighbor.
"^ ' ; v t ' T
W^
It was a fashionable method of unfair trading a dozen years
ago for schemers to discover unknown persons bearing names made
valuable by others or for such comtrfercial nonentities to discover
themselves and by starting in a similar business to attempt to profit
by the patronymic coincidence. Few products known and adver-
tised under personal names have been free from this sort of piracy.
Rogers' Silverware, Pillsbury's Flour, Stuart's Dyspepsia Tablets,
Bull's Cough Syrup, Baker's Chocolate, Gato's Cigars, Hall's Safes,
Williams' Soaps, Royal Baking Powder, Beecham's Pills and many
other products known by a surname have been the victims of this
variety of thievery.
Where the parasite does not bear the name, but has deliberately
adopted a famous name to do business under, no difficulty is experi-
enced in putting a stop to his depredations. An absolute prohibi-
tion from all use of the name is decreed. In deciding a case where
fa man assumed the name (Pinet) of a well-known English boot-
maker for trade purposes, the matter was thus concisely put by a
distinguished English judge:
"I think the case is a very clear one. As regards this man,
who began life as an Irish solicitor under the name of Dutch, who
has since changed successively to the trades of money lender and
manufacturer of boots and shoes under various names, who, when
he wants to deal in money in Pall Mall, takes the name of Ransom,
and then changes subsequently to Gower, then again to Forbes
Gower, then when he goes into boots takes the name of Pinet, for
reasons which everyone knows, I think he is utterly wrong. He has
been guilty from first to last of a commonplace clumsy fraud, and
I think I should be wasting public time if I were to give any more
words to the position he has in the matter."
It ought to be clear to everyone with a conscience that should
Smith adopt the name Pillsbury and go into the flour business, or
the name of Baker and go to making chocolate, that he has but one
purpose, and that to steal the successful businesses so long con-
ducted under these names; that this sort of thing is a fraud on its
face and {he use of the name ought to be. stopped and stopped com-
\ ietely, and the sooner the better. Of course, Smith has the same
right to go into the flour or chocolate business as anyone. This is
legitimate enough. The fraud lies in the name adopted. By reason
of the long use of these names by their original bearers, a new Pills-
bury flour or a new Baker's chocolate must result in deceiving the
public and pirating the business already established under these
names. The deceptive effect would be the same, whether the new-
comer's name was Smith and he assumed the name Pillsbury or
Baker, or whether having the name he assumed the flour or choco-
late business to use it in.
But why, it is argued, should a man be kept out of the flour or
•chocolate business or be required to conduct it anonymously because
he happens to bear the name he does in fact bear? This, perhaps, is
no place to air individual views. I am unable personally to see the
difference between changing a" name to fit a business and changing
a business to fit a name, where the result is the same in either case,
namely, injury to a competitor and deception of the public. But
the courts do make a distinction and hold that it is fraudulent for a
man to adopt a famous name to do business under and stop the use
of the name entirely, though they permit a man having a famous
name to adopt a business and use the name in connection with it,
though they often restrict the use of the name in that business so
as to minimize its deceptive effect.
The difficulty of an equitable adjustment of rights under such
circumstances is enormous.
What distinctions will be sufficient must, of course, depend
upon the circumstances in each particular case. A distinction ample
w one trade would be utterly inadequate in another. For example,
a man named Royal, at Louisville, started to make baking powder
and used his name upon the front of his cans in large letters. j ;
Of course, this induced its sale as Royal Baking Powder, and
was a manifest fraud. He was enjoined because the court found it
was not necessary thus prominently to display the name. It was
recognized that he had a right to state that he made the product,
but was required by the court to place his name upon the back of
the cans.
A bicycle repairman, named William H. Rogers, of Plainfield,
N. J., decided to go into the silverware business and used the name
Rogers in connection with his plated ware. He was permitted to
do so only when he used his full name, "William H. Rogers" or
"W. H. Rogers," and in addition the words "Not the original
Rogers" or "Not connected with the original Rogers" all in type of
the same or greater size and clearness. These explanatory state-
ments must accompany the use of the name so as, to quote the
language of Mr. Justice Holmes, of the Supreme Court, "to give
the antidote with the bane."
It must be said that the courts ten years ago were more severe
in their restraint of t^e deceptive use of personal names than they
are to-day,
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