Pennsylvania Saw was a manufacturer and competitor of the better known maker of hand saws, Henry Disston & Sons. In 1942, Pennsylvania Saw applied to get the trademark shown. Disston successfully opposed its registration, as it was too similar to a trademark of theirs. To quote the patent offices’ ruling,
“Disston’s Quaker and Pennsylvania’s Quaker are just two Quakers, so that Pennsylvania’s mark constitutes a substantial appropriation of a very prominent feature of Disston’s mark… since Pennsylvania concedes that Disston was prior in use, it follows that only Disston is entitled to registration”.
Disston’s application was registered on June 29, 1948 as trademark 439,429, while Pennsylvania Saw was unable to use the image they tried to trademark. Ah, the power of intellectual property!
