The Thomas A. Edison Papers Digital Edition

Transcription

20th April 1892 
Thomas Alva Edison Esq 
Orange, New Jersey, U.S.A. 
Edison Mimeograph Company 
Dear Sir, 
Your letter of the 9th instant addressed to our Mr. A.G. Renshaw has been received by us in Mr Renshaws absence in Spain and we have to-day written Mr Young the letter of which we enclose you copy, and also called upon him and seen both him and his Manager. 
Mr Young states that he has in building up the business he is now conduction, continuously used the Trade name complained of during the last three years, that he has registered it in this Country as a Trade Mark and for Copyright purposes, that he has spent large sums for advertising the apparatus, (some of the advertisements still having 10 or 11 months to run), and that he has repeatedly written you asking if you had any objection to the use of the name and that he is prepared to discontinue the use of the name on receiving an undertaking that it will not be used by others to reap the benefit of the business created by him, but that otherwise he will defend his position. 
Mr Young further states that he has been lecturing for many years as to your inventions and regarding yourself, and that he should be exceedingly sorry that any misunderstanding should take place between you, but that he is advised by eminent Counsel that he has by use acquired a right of the name, and more-over, that he has good grounds to justify his claiming against others using the title complained of in this Country. 
Mr Young also informed us that he should write you direct on the subject as he considers that (as in the case of the litigation he has lately been engaged in), no good can result to any of those concerned by enlightening the public in regard to the process of manufacture etc. 
In conclusion, you might experience some difficulty in restraining Mr Young from using your name your name in connection with the Mimeograph, but if he has registered the words “Edison Mimeograph”, as his Trade Mark , we think you might succeed in having the Trade Mark expunged from the Register. Mr Young says that the Machines he sells are supplied to him by the A.B. Dick Co and have the words “Edison Mimeograph” engraved upon them, so that to that extent it is true that he sells “Edison Mimeographs”. 
Yours truly, 
<Renshaw Kekewich> 2 Suffolk Lane, London. 
E.C. 20th April 1892. 
J. Lewis Young Esq 
67 Fore Street, E.C. 
Sir, 
We are instructed by Mr. Thomas Alva Edison of Orange, New Jersey, U.S.A. that you are conducting business under the name or style of the Edison Mimeograph Company and that you are entirely un-authorized by Mr. Edison to incorporate his name in the title of your Company. 
Mr Edison instructs us to ask you to immediately dis-continue the use of his name and we would ask you to kindly notify  us by return of post that it is your intention to refrain from using Mr Edison’s name in combination with your Mimeograph Company. 
Yours faithfully, 
Renshaw Kekewish & Co