Unfair competition may result from representations or conduct which deceive the public into believing that the business name, reputation or good will of one person is that of another

It has been decided, and with good reason, that the name established for a hotel is a trade mark, in which the proprietor has a valuable interest, which a court of chancery will protect against infringement.

—it appears that the plaintiff's hotel was called the "Irving House" but it soon became generally known as the "Irving House" and "Irving Hotel," indiscriminately.

Common law rules against passing off and trademark infringement were established by the mid 1800s and expanded beyond passing off.

—in 1851, was decided by five out of six judges of the Superior Court of the City of New York, when that court was composed of as able minds as any in the land.

A court of equity will enjoin unlawful competition in a trademark by reason of a simulated label, or of the appropriation of a name.

The early decisions condemning this practice were based on the two wrongs inflicted thereby:(1) the deceit and fraud on the public;(2) the misappropriation to one person of the benefit of a name, reputation or business good will belonging to another

The actions of the inventor of the trade mark are not the subject of investigation so much as those of the imitator.

If the use of the thing to which the plaintiff has affixed his mark, or in which he has acquired a good-will, is from its nature necessarily local, the defendant's use must be in the same place.

"He must not by any deceitful or other practice impose on the public, and he must not by dressing himself in another man's garments, and by assuming another man's name, endeavor to deprive that man of his own individuality and of the gains to which by his industry and skill he is fairly entitled."

[CITATION] Barber v. Connecticut Mutual Life Ins. Co.

[BOOK] The Law of Torts, or private Wrongs: Vol. II