Lamb v. Grand Rapids School Furniture Co.
| Decision Date | 20 August 1889 |
| Citation | 39 F. 474 |
| Parties | LAMB et al. v. GRAND RAPIDS SCHOOL FURNITURE CO. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Michigan |
Frederick T. Sibley, (James H. Brewster, of counsel,) for complainants.
Taggart Wolcott & Ganson, for defendant.
The complainants, who are manufacturers of church furniture at New York, prepared and published a book of engravings illustrating their goods, and containing also a price-list thereof. This book they procured to be copyrighted. The defendant is a manufacturer of school and church furniture at Grand Rapids, and they also have published a book containing illustrations of their goods, with price-list, and several of those illustrations bear striking resemblance to those of the complainants. In fact, the defendant manufactures goods from designs taken from complainants' illustrations, and they say (what for the present purpose must be admitted) that their illustrations are in truth of their own goods, so that the similitude of the illustrations results from the fact that the goods are alike. The manufactures of the complainants are not patented. The defendants may lawfully manufacture just such goods. Can they not publish correct illustrations of them as adjuncts of their sale? Ought they to be restrained from doing this because the complainants having done the same thing, have copyrighted illustrations which, while representing their own goods, represent those of the defendant also? It is clear that the books of both parties are published and used solely as means for advertisement. To say that the defendant has not the right to publish correct illustrations of its goods must practically result in creating a monopoly, in goods modeled on those designs, in the complainants, and thus give all the benefits of a patent upon unpatented and unpatentable articles. Sales of merchandise are made largely by samples, and when the articles are bulky, as in the case of furniture illustrations are the only representations that can be made to the eye of the public at large; and it is altogether likely that to withdraw the right to make them from one of the parties would put him out of the field of competition. It does not appear to me that such results can be accomplished in this way. It is true, there is an appearance of profiting at another's expense, and reaping what another has sown but I can see no legal ground on which this can be prevented. The...
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Ansehl v. Puritan Pharmaceutical Co.
...about the fact to warrant the granting a preliminary injunction, and the motion therefore is denied." Lamb v. Grand Rapids School Furniture Co., 39 F. 474, 475 (C. C., W. D. Mich., 1889). "If it were done * * * solely for the purpose of advertising particular articles for sale * * * I know ......
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...Hamilton Mfg. Co. v. Tubbs Mfg. Co., D.C., 216 F. 401; Baker v. Selden, 101 U.S. 99, 106, 25 L.Ed. 841; Lamb v. Grand Rapids School Furniture Co., C. C., 39 F. 474; Mott Iron Works v. Clow, 7 Cir., 82 F. 316, 10. A judgment may be entered dismissing the complaint with costs to the defendant. ...
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DeSilva Construction Corp. v. Herrald
...Co., supra.) The copyright in pictures of furniture in a catalog was held not infringed by making such furniture. (Lamb v. Grand Rapids School Furniture Co., 39 F. 474, W.D. Mich. (1889).) These holdings are in accord with the view previously stated that the only monopoly which the copyrigh......
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