Von Faber v. Faber

124 F. 603, 1903 U.S. App. LEXIS 5017
CourtU.S. Circuit Court for the District of Southern New York
DecidedAugust 18, 1903
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 124 F. 603 (Von Faber v. Faber) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Southern New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Von Faber v. Faber, 124 F. 603, 1903 U.S. App. LEXIS 5017 (circtsdny 1903).

Opinion

RAY, District Judge

(after stating the facts as above). The house of A. W. Faber was established in 1761, and is one of the oldest and best-known houses engaged in the manufacture of pencils in the world —possibly the oldest and the best-known house. The central seat of its business is at Stein, Bavaria, where its pencil manufactory is situated. As a lead-pencil manufacturer and dealer, the house is principally known. This house started business on a moderate scale, which grew to enormous proportions. At the present time it has more than one factory, and branch houses at Berlin, Paris, London, and New York, with agencies at other large and central cities. In a circular issued by the defendant about the year 1890, and which is in evidence, a condensed history of the house is given as follows:

“Kasper Faber settled in tbe little village of Stein, near Nuremberg, and there commenced tbe manufacture of Faber’s pencils in 1761. He carried tbe weekly product of his factory to Nuremberg in a band basket. But tbe high price paid for bis goods furnished tbe best proof of their early superiority. Anthony William Faber, whose name the firm bears to this day, succeeded bis father, Kasper Faber. The business gradually grew under tbe successive owners, but under the management of Mr. John Lothar Faber, who afterwards became Baron Lothar von Faber, the business increased rapidly. He' associated with him his two brothers, Mr. Johann Faber, who remained at Stein, and Mr. Eberhard Faber [tbe father of this defendant], who came to the United States, and established a branch house in New York, in which was centered the trade of North America. In 1861 a centennial festival was held at Stein, in which employers and employes joined. All of the Faber’s pencils used in the United States were made in Germany or here in New York, the more expensive ones being the imported pencils. The graphite used in making the very best pencils was drawn from Siberia.”

[605]*605The defendant, having the same family name as the complainants, has, it is contended, failed to use his name when competing with the complainants, A. W. Faber, in such a way as to differentiate his establishment and his goods from those of the complainants; and the charge is that the defendant simulates complainants’ mode and manner of putting up and placing on the market its most popular lines of pencils. The complainant contends that the defendant tends to breed and has bred confusion in the market, and caused purchasers and users of lead pencils, etc., to purchase the goods made and sold by the defendant, when they desired to purchase and use the goods made by the complainant.

The evidence in this case, which is very voluminous, shows that formerly the relations of the defendant’s house to the complainants’ house were those of sole agent for the United States, in a very broad and comprehensive sense. For many years the father of the present defendant was the sole agent for the United States of the complainants’ predecessor, and there was not only a business but a family relationship. In the beginning and for many years the A. W. Faber house furnished capital for the defendant’s predecessor, including manufactured goods, and the defendant house sold the A. W. Faber house goods; but after a time the defendant house was given the right to manufacture and sell a low grade and inferior quality of lead pencils, but was not given the right ever to use either the name “A. W. Faber” or “Faber.” After a time the defendant, formerly known as John Robert Faber, John Eberhard Faber, also known as Eberhard Faber and E. Faber, following out certain practices in which his father, as agent for the plaintiff house, had indulged, began to use the name “Faber” upon lead pencils, and in connection with other stationary goods which he was making and selling in the United States on his own account and for his own profit and gain, in competition with the plaintiff house; the agency having- been terminated March 31, 1894, because, mainly, of the alleged wrongful and illegal practices of the defendant. The defendant has made, against the protest of the complainant, the principal lines of A. W. Faber’s pencils, distinctly imprinted and labeled “E. Faber”; and these lines of pencils have been made of the same size and shape as complainants’ pencils, and the same quality of pencils have been put up in packages of the same size and shape, with labels of the same color and markings, and in such a manner as to actually confuse the public, and induce those who desire to purchase the A. W. Faber pencils to purchase the pencils made by the defendant. In the manner mentioned, and by using the name “E. Faber” instead of the name “Eberhard Faber,” the trade has been easily misled, and, to quite an extent, in different parts of the United States; many persons having purchased the defendant’s pencils, believing they were purchasing the A. W. Faber pencils. These practices, persisted in by the defendant, have not only injured the complainant in its business, but, if allowed, will still further injure the complainant. The court is satisfied that these practices of the defendant have been persisted in and were adopted for the purpose of taking away and injuring the legitimate business of the complainant. The defendant knew that the house of A. W. Faber had come to be known [606]*606generally as the Faber House, or the House of Faber, and that its pencils were known the world over, wherever used, as the Faber pencils.

The defendant has not used his full name in designating his goods, nor has he used the initials “J. E. Faber.” The defendant, in putting up and packing his goods for the market, has in many instances extensively so packed them and so placed the labels about packages as to conceal from the ordinary observer the initial “E.,” and in this way has still further confused the public and purchasers, and caused his product to be purchased, sold,'and used as the Faber pencil, the purchasers and users believing that they were purchasing the goods of the ancient, established house of A. W. Faber. Formerly the defendant, in his ordinary correspondence and in his business and social relations, gave and used and signed the name “John Eberhard Faber,” and it was mainly, if not entirely in connection with the practices above mentioned, which interfered with and seriously affected and injured the business of the house of A. W. Faber, that the defendant used the name “E. Faber.”

As early as the year 1897 the attention of the defendant was called to his unfair methods of trade and competition in the pencil business and in the rubber stationery business. The defendant denied that he had misused the name of Faber, and denied that there had ever been any agency on the part of his house for the house of A. W. Faber; and the defendant then claimed that the numbers on the pencils had been devised by him (the defendant). It appears from the evidence that the defendant, in carrying on his business, has used the same numbers on certain goods or qualities of pencils used by the house of A. W. Faber, for the same grade and quality of pencil. The defendant also used the words “Faber Pencil Co.” and the words “Faber Pencil Works” to designate his works, business, etc. — ■ substantially the names that had been used by the defendant, as agent for the plaintiff house, to designate the business, etc., of the complainants. In 1894, and before the dissolution of the agency, the defendant had agreed that all pencils made by him should be sold under the name of “Graphite Pencil Co.” For many years, while the agency continued, A. W. Faber, had permitted the defendant and his predecessors to counterstamp the A. W.

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Bluebook (online)
124 F. 603, 1903 U.S. App. LEXIS 5017, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/von-faber-v-faber-circtsdny-1903.