As has been pointed out in previous e-mails, the company names of the
Rudolph Wurlitzer Company and later the Wurlitzer Company are generally
written in the normal way by the company, and the registered trademark
of the company has a W and T in a larger font, of a particular design,
with an extended bar on the T and elongated legs on the R's.

An interesting aside to this correspondence regarding the Wurlitzer
Company and its trademark concerns copies of Wurlitzer jukeboxes that
were manufactured in Australia in the period following World War II.
At this time there were severe restrictions in Australia on non
essential imports from the United States and a great unmet demand for
new jukeboxes.

A company was set up to manufacture and operate (i.e., to hire on a
profit sharing basis) jukeboxes.  The actual manufacturing was carried
out by outside jobbing engineering and cabinet making sub contractors
and these components were assembled by the company.  The company was
set up by Reg Sutherland who was the proprietor of Modern Amusement
Machine Co. in Melbourne and Brisbane, operators of amusement, vending,
gambling, etc., coin operated machines, in partnership with Alan Bales
who either then or later also owned a similar firm.

Both the Wurlitzer models 600 and 1100 were copied, with a slightly
different mechanism for each: the first with a keyboard selector,
the other, the 1100 copy, with a rotary pushbutton selector.  Both
mechanisms were exact copies of the Wurlitzer Simplex 24-play
mechanisms.

The mechanisms worked well.  The first model produced, a copy of the
Wurlitzer 600, had a cabinet that was an almost exact copy except for
a minor variation in the aluminium grille pattern.

The next model to be copied was designated the "Model S" and had a
cabinet that was a much simplified copy of the American Wurlitzer 1100.
Reg Sutherland of Modern Amusement Company manufactured these and made
fifty of each model.  As these were made for operation by the company
rather than re-sale, the cost of manufacture was not the main
consideration as the potential profit from the operation of these
jukeboxes was huge.

The Simplex mechanism had been acquired by the Rudolph Wurlitzer
Company when it began to make jukeboxes in the early nineteen-thirties
and was the basis of all its 78 rpm jukeboxes.  Wurlitzer had not
patented the mechanism or registered the company name in Australia.
The operator who made these copies even called the company that he set
up to manufacture them the "Wurlitzer Automatic Phonograph Company of
Australia Pty. Ltd."

In due course the Rudolph Wurlitzer Company took legal action against
the Australian company in an attempt to stop it from manufacturing the
jukeboxes in Australia and using the Wurlitzer name.  However, the
Rudolph Wurlitzer Company lost the case.

The judgment held that Wurlitzer was a family name and not a product
(such as, for example, Coca Cola) and could therefore be legitimately
used to name a company and that the Wurlitzer Automatic Phonograph Co.
of Australia had not used the name Wurlitzer in the distinctive font with
the larger T with an extended bar, etc., anywhere in its advertising or
on its products, and therefore had not infringed the registered design
of the company's trademark.  It is significant that shortly after this
the company name was changed from the Rudolph Wurlitzer Company to the
Wurlitzer Company.

An ironic footnote to this episode is that in 1985 the Wurlitzer Company
was bought by an Australian Company (Nelson Group Overseas) which, in
this era of globalization continued the manufacture of Wurlitzer
jukeboxes and cigarette vending machines in Germany, and sold them
worldwide.  Details of the Australian ownership of the Wurlitzer
Company can be found on the following web site:

http://www.country.com.au/index.cfm?page_id=1002&news_display_year_5069=2006&display_news_id_5069=1921

Bob Klepner
Melbourne, Australia