Thu, 11/12/2015 - 12:49

Quiz - What is a Christmas Seal?

1904 Danish TB Seal issued at Christmas time

a) a commerical decorative Christmas poster stamp used on Christmas mail and packages

b) a tuberculosis or lung charity label issued at Christmas time, as stated in this pamphlet issued in 1976 by the American Lung Association. "...with the help of Green's Catalog... 76 countries with lung association issuing Christmas Seals... it's world-wide!" See pdf below for the entire informative pamphlet.

c) a fundraising seal which includes the double barred cross, or Cross of Lorraine proposed in 1902 at the international conference on TB in Berlin, as the international symbol of the fight against TB

d) a tb seal issued by the ALA, or any other Organizational or Constituent Member of the International Union against TB & Lung Disease

e) an entry in the Christmas Seal contest held at the World Conference on Lung Health, the annual convention of the International Union against TB & Lung Diesase

f) a seal issued by the ALA or it’s predecessors, since it’s acquisition of a registered trademark for the term in 1987.

If you choose “f”, you are correct, Christmas Seal® is a registered trademark of the American Lung Association.

Because "Christmas Seal" is part of the name of our Society, we are vitally interested!

Below is a list of articles and notes from newspapers making reference to "Christmas Seals" before the ALA registered their trademark. The dates range from 1915 to 1982 , a good time range to show how "Christmas Seals" is a generic term. Five of these are from the first year of the seals' issuance (Boys Town, Catholic Charities, HCA, New Mexico Boys Ranch, and Roweton Boys Ranch). I think this is additional evidence of the generic nature of the term, since the organizations used it right from the beginning. four are the earliest reference I've found (Grace, NAACP, Starr, Lutheran Sanatarium Wheat Ridge).

Commercial Decorative Christmas Seals

Illustrated is a 1926 generic use of the term "Christmas Seal" by the Mistletoe Seal Company which sold commercial decorative Christmas Seals. These did not have a charitable purpose. One early series of these commercial Christmas Seals were the Santa Claus Post which began in 1908. These are well cataloged in Larry B. Hixon's Santa Post Catalog, edited by Joseph D. Ward, Jr., published by the CS&CSS. Other commercial Christmas Seals followed. Some of these commercial Christmas Seals are difficult to distinguish for actual charitable fundraising seals, particularly Catholic fundraising seals. Quite a few were die cut and have irregular shapes. Attached is a downloadable pdf file which illustrate some commercial Christmas Seals tied on cover. The last page has several Santa Claus Post.

Patent denied when inventor waited too long

Patent case, denying patentability because the inventor waited "almost a decade" before filing. Even though it's a patent case, it's relevant to someone waiting 80 years, as the ALA did, to file for a trademark. In that 80 years, many organizations jumped in and used the term. The case is abstracted below.

In the 1876 case Consolidated Fruit Jar Company v. Wright, the Consolidated Fruit Jar Company alleged other jar manufacturers were infringing its patent on Mason jars and requested the Court forbid their competitors from selling their versions of the jar. The Court refused, reasoning that, because the Mason jar was not patented for almost a decade after its creation and introduction to the marketplace, the original inventor “acquire[d] no title, and his invention or discovery . . . is lost to him.”

George Painter, member CS&CSS