Jeweler's Circular Pub. Co. v. Keystone Pub. Co.

281 F. 83, 26 A.L.R. 571, 1922 U.S. App. LEXIS 2056
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedFebruary 6, 1922
DocketNo. 188
StatusPublished
Cited by74 cases

This text of 281 F. 83 (Jeweler's Circular Pub. Co. v. Keystone Pub. Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Jeweler's Circular Pub. Co. v. Keystone Pub. Co., 281 F. 83, 26 A.L.R. 571, 1922 U.S. App. LEXIS 2056 (2d Cir. 1922).

Opinions

ROGERS, Circuit Judge.

This suit is brought to restrain .the infringement of copyright No. 391,804, granted to the plaintiff, dated February 15, 1915, for a compilation entitled “Trade-Marks of the Jewelry and Kindred Trades.” It is alleged to be infringed by the defendant’s publication entitled “The Jewelers’ Index,” published in October, 1920. The plaintiff’s publication is sold generally to the jewelry and kindred trades at the price of $5 a copy, and some thousands of copies have been so sold in such trades. The defendant’s publication, on the other hand, is distributed without charge to the same trades. It has printed on the cover:

“This Index is loaned, not sold. It remains the property of the Keystone Publishing Company, and must be returned in order to receive the new edition.”

It contains 610 pages, and is a larger volume than the plaintiff’s, which only contains 326 pages. It is alleged that this fact has already undermined, and will undermine, unless restrained, the sale of the plaintiff’s publication, and will destroy the market for any new supplements or new editions thereof, as well as irreparably injure the good will and reputation which the plaintiff has acquired over a period of more than half a century with its advertisers and customers.

The complaint alleges that the defendant, in preparing, compiling, and printing its book, entitled “The Jewelers’ Index,” has, as a substitute for and in lieu of a resort to original sources, unfairly used and pirated the results of the plaintiff’s labor and expenditures, as set forth in the plaintiff’s copyrighted book, and has incorporated such results in its (defendant’s) publication, so that defendant’s publication is to a very large extent the product of the plaintiff’s original work, merely rewritten as to form, and with minor changes, omissions,' and additions made by defendant, so as to conceal the fact that defendant’s book was the product of the plaintiff’s original work; that defendant, instead of resorting to original sources for illustrations and representations of marks, both registered and unregistered, and other important and useful information of interest to the jewelry and kindred trades, has to a very large extent obtained the same from the plaintiff’s copyrighted book.

The answer denies that its book is an infringement of the plaintiff’s book. It denies that it has unfairly used or pirated the results of the plaintiff’s labor or expenditure as set forth in the plaintiff’s copyrighted book, and it denies that it has incorporated such results in its publication, and denies that its publication is to any extent the product of the plaintiff’s original work. It denies that, instead of resorting to original sources for illustrations or representations of trade-marks, registered or unregistered, or other important or useful information of interest to the trades, that it has to any extent obtained the same from the plaintiff’s copyrighted book, and it denies that it has availed itself of any of the plaintiff’s original work, and the defendant denies that it has published any of the plaintiff’s original work as its own original work.

[85]*85The court below has entered a decree holding the copyright valid and infringed. It directs that a perpetual injunction be issued enjoining the respondent from selling or distributing the Trade-Mark Section of the Jewelers’ Index, published by it in October, 1920, or from printing, publishing, or vending of any other compilation of trade-marks which shall contain any fac simile or colorable copy or reproduction which shall be made from any trade-mark illustrations contained in the plaintiff’s copyrighted book. The decree also contains the other usual provisions inserted in such decrees, and provides for an accounting and the payment of damages.

[1] The Century Dictionary defines a directory as:

“A book containing an alphabetical list of the inhabitants of a city, town, district, or the like, with their occupation, place of business, and abode.”

That is one kind, and perhaps the most usual kind, of a directory, the one with which most people are familiar; but a city directory is not the sole kind of a directory. There are, among others, telephone directories, social directories, business directories, and trade-mark directories. The plaintiff’s directory is a directory of trade-marks. It was first published and copyrighted in the year 1896. It has passed through several editions. The third edition, published and copyrighted in 1915, is the one involved in this suit.

It was at one time intimated in certain judicial opinions that directories were not entitled to copyright. But the law is now well established to the contrary in England. Kelly v. Hooper, 1 Y. & C. C. C. 197; Kelly v. Morris, L. R. 1 Eq. 696; Morris v. Ashbee, L. R. 7 Eq. 33; Lamb v. Evans, [1893] 1 Ch. Div. 218; Morris v. Wright, L. R. 5 Ch. A. 279. It is equally well-establishéd law in this country. Trow Directory Printing & Book-Binding Co. v. Boyd (C. C.) 97 Fed. 586; Williams v. Smythe (C. C.) 110 Fed. 961; Trow Directory Co. v. United States Directory Co. (C. C.) 122 Fed. 191; Sampson & Murdock Co. v. Seaver-Radford Co., 140 Fed. 539, 72 C. C. A. 55; Hartford Printing Co. v. Hartford Directory & Publishing Co. (C. C.) 146 Fed. 332. And in Bleistein v. Donaldson Lithographing Co., 188 U. S. 239, 250, 23 Sup. Ct. 298, 47 L. Ed. 460, Mr. Justice Holmes, writing for the court, speaks of directories as being capable of copyright. Whatever doubt may have existed on the subject under the earlier acts, if any can be said to have existed, was ended by the action of Congress in enacting the Copyright Act of March 4, 1909 (Comp. St. §§ 9517-9524, 9530-9584), for section 5 of that act, in subdivision A (Comp. St. § 9521), in specifying the works in which copyright can be claimed, expressly names directories. Its language is:

“Books, including composite and cyclopedic works, directories, gazetteers, and other compilations.”

The plaintiff’s publication, being clearly a directory, was unquestionably copyrightable, and the plaintiff’s copyright was a valid copyright. The fact is not material that it contains a compilation of trade-marks, and that a single trade-mark is not the subject of copyright.

[2] Error is assigned in overruling the following exception to the special master’s report:

[86]*86“(2) In that the special master has erroneously found that the plaintiff has a copyright upon illustrations of trade-marks published in its said book, whereas the Copyright Law of the United States forbids the copyright of' such illustrations of trade-marks; it providing that ‘no prints or labels designed to be used for any other article of manufacture shall be entered under the copyright law, but may be registered in the Patent Office.’ U. S. Compiled Statutes, 1918, Compact Edition, § 9517a.”

The Copyright Law of 1874 (18 Stat. 78, c. 301) provided as follows:

“The words ‘engraving,’ ‘cut,’ and ‘print’ shall be applied only to pictorial illustrations or works connected with the fine arts, and no prints or labels designed to be used for any other articles of manufacture shall be entered under the Copyright Law, but may be registered in the Patent Office.”

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Bluebook (online)
281 F. 83, 26 A.L.R. 571, 1922 U.S. App. LEXIS 2056, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jewelers-circular-pub-co-v-keystone-pub-co-ca2-1922.