592 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[Makch i, 1895. 
believe they are drinking tea from an estate of 
the name in Ceylon. Another point in the 
Judge's review of the evidence strikes me forci- 
bly. He said : — "It was in evidence that trade 
marks were applied in Ceylon without reference 
to the estate where the tea had been grown. 
This reminds us of a late controversy on another 
point. As Mr. Justice Rouier puts' the case, it 
does not matter what words are used, because 
they are all meaningless in the Ceylon ten trade. 
And yet the further statement is made thai ai 
all sales of tea made at the Mincing Cam- Sale 
Room the produce was sold as the produce pi 
a certain estate, the English word "estate" be- 
ing used as part of the description even when 
'-'watte" was used. We necessarily arrive at the 
conclusion, therefore, that the sales in Mincing 
Lane are conducted upon false principles. Teas 
are sold there described as the produce of a cer- 
tain estate, but the trade recognizes no value in 
such description, knowing the name of the 
estate to be used only as a trade mark. I must 
say that it seems to me that this is verv an- 
desirable, and that it's continuance will land jour 
tea planters in difficulties at last.— London Cor. 
Imnlw 11W Ud I :.m,i ..nl ),; 
mti to hit-} ult jji hiij.j t;> . ill' /»W^M J I 
THE MAZAWATTEE TRADE-MARK CASE. 
The following is the London Times report of this 
Case referred to by our London correspondent : — 
(Before Mr. Justice Romer.) 
IN RE DENSHAM AND 80NS' TRADE-MARK. 
This was a case of great interest and importance 
as to What is a " fancy word," which can be pro- 
perly registered as a trade-mark. In very many 
' Oases, some of which are referred to below, fancy 
words have been held to be bad trade-marks, 
either on the ground that they were descrip- 
tive, although truly so, or that they were de- 
i oeptive — that is to say, untruly descriptive — the 
effect of the decisions being that no fancy word 
could be a good trade-mark unless it was something 
very like unintelligible nonsense. Some of the 
decisions have gone a great length. For instance, in 
"Lire 'Jackson's Trade-mark" (6 Itep. Pat. Cas., 80), 
an application was made to register " Kokoko" as a 
trade-mark for cotton goods. There was no trade in 
these goods with the Chippeway Indians, but the word 
in their tongue means an owl, and as an owl is a com- 
i moil mark on certain Manchester goods, it was held 
. I 1 that the word was not a good fancy word, inasmuch 
; 1 as it was not known how long it might not be before 
■jji .there was a trade with these Indians in Manchester 
goods, in which case these goods might be confused 
with those marked "Kokoko." In the present case 
the application was to strike off the register certain 
trade-marks consisting of or combining the word 
" MazaWattee " which the respondents, Messrs. 
Densham and Sons, have registered and use in 
connection with tea and coffee. The applicant, 
i 1 Mr. H. Deakin, does not deal in tea or coffee, 
but the registration of "Mazawattee" stands in the 
way of his registering his trade-mark " Marza " in 
certain classes. It was admitted that there was no 
estate called " Mazawatte" in Ceylon. 
Mr. Moulton, Q.C., Mr. Hopkinson, Q.C., and Mr. 
John Cutler were for the applicant, and Sir Richard 
Webster, Q.C., Mr. Cozens-Hardy, Q.C., Mr. Neville, 
Q.C., and Mr. Sebestian for the respondents. 
Mr. Justice Romer, in delivering judgment, said 
the cases as to trade-marks being insufficient on the 
grounds that they were deceptive or descriptive had 
gone very far and perhaps beyond what the mercan- 
tile community thought fair. However that might be, 
if his Lordship acceded to the present application 
he would be going beyond anything laid down in 
the decided cases. The opposition to the trade- 
mark' was based on the following grounds. It was 
said that l! Mazawattee " was a geographical descrip- 
tion as applied to tea. or coffee, and that the name 
implied that the articles sold under it were of Cin- 
galese origin, and therefore that the word was des- 
criptive and the mark was bad. The word had been 
registered as a trade-mark for many years, without 
any complaint and without any one' having been 
deceived by it. It was not descriptive. The word was 
an invented word, and when it was composed there 
was no such word in the English language or 
known to any class in this country. The word 
" mazadar " was taken from the Hindu tongue 
and meant something like "luscious." That word 
was too long to be used as part of a compound 
word and was accordingly cut down to •■ maza," 
which in Hindu meant taste or relish. That word 
would be wholly unknown in Ceylon, for there wa» 
no such thing as " z " in the Cingalese language. 
The other part of the word, " wattee," meant in 
Cingalese an estate, or garden, or growth and when 
the word was invented the position was that the 
Ceylon tea trade was in its infancy. Few estates 
there were sending tea to England, and the names 
of some, but a few only, oi these estates had names 
with the termination " wattee." The word was 
wholly unknown in the tea trade elsewhere, except 
that some of the Mincing-lane tea brokers might 
have known what the word meant. At all sales of 
tea made at the Mincing-lane sale rooms the produce 
was sold as the produce of a certain estate, the 
English word " estate " being used as part of the 
description, even where " wattee " was used. As 
one of the witnesses had said, if the Mincing-lane 
brokers had seen a box of tea come over marked 
" wattee " they would have known it, not as the pro. 
duce of any particular estate, but as tea sent over by 
some Ceylon merchant, and it was in evidence that 
trade-marks were applied in Ceylon without refer, 
ence to the estate where the tea had been grown. So 
that even to Mincing-lane salesmen the use of "wat- 
tee " would not have conveyed the notion that a 
particular estate was referred to. In England gene- 
rally it was not known then what the meaning of 
the word was. No doubt many people in England now 
knew it, but that was in a great measure due to the 
extensive use of the respondents' trade-mark, and 
now there were more estates in Ceylon the names 
of which terminated with " wattee," though even 
now out of about 900 estates only about 13 had 
names so terminating. In England "Mazawattee " 
was meaningless. To Hindus it was also meaningless 
because they would not understand the latter part 
of it. Nortothe Cingalese was the word inteUigible, 
for they could not understand the first part of it. 
The word had no meaning in any one known 
language. It had been said that, to Englishmen, 
or certain classes of EngUshmen, the Word 
would indicate that the tea had a Cingalese 
origin. But it had no more a Cingalese than a 
Hindu origin, and did not represent to Englishmen 
a reference to any locality or place. The word had 
an Eastern sound, perhaps, and if it conveyed any 
idea, it was of the East generally. But that was not 
sufficient to justify his Lordship in saying that the 
trade-mark was bad as referring to a particular qual- 
ity or locality. It could not be said that because a 
word had an Eastern sound it was descriptive of 
some place in the East. It described no place, in 
fact, and was neither descriptive nor calculated to 
deceive, nor did it denote any estate. In the argu- 
ment reference had been made to "In re Van Du- 
zer's Trade-mark" (Law Report, 34, Ch. D., 623), 
but the observations of the Lords Justices in that 
case, particularly those of Lord Justice Cotton, must 
be considered with reference to cases as to words 
which in themselves were either English or had a 
meaning in this country or to some classes in this 
country. "Mazawattee" was not in the true sence 
deceptive. It would not lead people to suppose that 
it meant an estate in Ceylon, or that the tea came 
from there. Some of the witnesses had said they 
had been deceived, but they broke down under cross- 
examination, and his Lordship was satisfied that up 
to the present time there had been no decention 
by the use of the word ''Mazawattee" — in fact, the 
respondent's advertisements had always shown that 
that were dealing in teas not coming from any parti« 
