UNFAIR COMPETITION AND TRADE-MARKS WITH CHAPTERS ON GOOD-WILL, TRADE SECRETS, DEFAMATION OF COMPETITORS SECOND EDITION BY HARRY D. NIMS, M. A. OF THE NEW YORK BAR "The law is not made for the protection of experts, but for the public, that vast multi- NEW YORK BAKER, VOORHIS AND COMPANY INTRODUCTION TO SECOND EDITION The law of Unfair Competition is a popular branch of the law. It has a direct bearing on the lives of most of us, and is of general interest for that reason. It deals fundamentally and specifically with one of the most important phases of everyday life,the struggle for a living. It is largely free from legal red tape and technicality. It consists of one simple rule,-"Compete honestly". This rule is not a statute, the creation of a Congress or a Legislature. It is a statement of the public sentiment of the day. The old rules,-"He who buys must look out for himself," "Everything goes in a trade," "Business is business,"-have been discarded, and a better time has come. This law is of general interest, too, because business is no longer entirely in the hands of individuals. Our life depends more than we sometimes appreciate, on great soulless, invisible and, to the average man, un-understandable forces, which we call corporations. In the past, there has been cause to fear them, and many instinctively turn to the law for protection in their dealings with them. Men believe they can deal personally and adequately with a competitor who is a fellow-townsman, even though he has great possessions, while they often feel helpless in a struggle with a corporation. The demand upon the law to protect the small business concern against oppressive competition has been persistent in the past twenty-five years, and the rules of Unfair Competition Law form one of the principal answers of the courts to this demand. This law is of special interest to the lawyer and to the political economist, because it has demonstrated that our courts of equity can be depended upon to adjust the law to the vital needs of the times. In Rome, the Prætor, the forerunner of our equity judge, sat at the city gate clothed with power to relieve the people in cases where the rigorous judgments of the courts, which enforced the letter of the law, worked needless hardships and injustice. The equity judges of to-day, as they have built up the law of unfair competition in their decisions dealing with the hardships of modern trade, have shown the community that the great funda |