John Hessin Clarke

“ While there is no specific provision for disclaimers in the trade-mark statute, the practice of using them is commended to our judgment by the statement of the Commissioner of Patents that, so far as known, no harm came to the public from the practice of distinguishing, without deleting, nonregistrable matter in the drawing of the mark as registered, when a statement, forming a part of the record, was required that the applicant was not making claim to an exclusive appropriation of such matter except in the precise relation and association in which it appeared in the drawing and description. ”

“ Other like goods, equal to them in all respects, may be manufactured or dealt in by others, who, with equal truth, may use, and must be left free to use, the same language of description in placing their goods before the public. ”

“ Thus the proviso quoted, being simply an expression in statutory form of the prior general rule of law that words merely descriptive are not a proper subject for exclusive trade-mark appropriation, if the application in this case had been to register only the words 'Moistair Heating System,' plainly it would have fallen within the terms of the prohibition, for they are merely descriptive of a claimed property or quality of the petitioner's heating system-that by it moisture is imparted to the air in the process of heating. ”