REUTER’S TELEGRAM COMPANY.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 106, 2 October 1874, Page 3

REUTER’S TELEGRAM COMPANY.

An application to the Rolls Court on July 23rd in the case Reuter v Byron , is thus reported by The Times : This was a motion of a singular character. The plaintiffs transmit messagess to most parts of the world after the manner in which packed parcels are transmitted by railway, putting as many messages as they can into each telegram, ane {prefixing to every message a preconcerted word or “cypher,” to signify the name and address of the sender, and the name and address of the receiver of the message. These cyphers are registered, and Reuter’s agent at the other end of the wire, on receiving a message, has only to look out the cypher in his copy of the register, in order to know who is the sender, and to whom he is to deliver the message. A Mr Greville used to act as Reuter’s agent at Adelaide, Sydney, and Melbourne, under the name of Greville’s Telegram Company, but he transferred his business to the defendants, Messrs Byron and Pierce, a short time ago. Differences having arisen since then between the plaintiffs and the defendants, the latter gave up their agency, and Mr Byron, coming to London, opened an office at 9a New Bond street, in the name of Greville’s Australian Telegram Company, for the transmission of Australian telegrams, and addresced a circular to various firms whose cyphers were on Reuter’s register, stating that the connexion between Greville’s Company and Reuter’s Company had ceased, and inviting employment; adding “your cypher (namingit) has been registered in this office.” Upon this the plaintiffs filed their bill, and now moved for an injunction to restrain the defendants from continuing registered in their office, and from using any cyphers the knowledge of which was communicated in confidence to Greville’s Company.

Mr Southgate, Q.C., and Macnaugliten, for the motion, said that the cyphers had come to the knowledge of the defendants in the course of their employment as servants or agents of the plaintiffs ; and contended that an injunction ought to he granted, on theground of breach of confidence, to restrain the defendants from using the cyphers for a purpose different from that for which they were communicated to the defendants.

Mr Chitty, Q. C., and Mr Freeling, for the defendants, argued that they had been guilty of no breach of confidence. They had got the cyphers properly and fairly, and were entitled to Aise them so long as they did not take the plaintiffs’ name. If what they had done was ground for granting an injunction, then no shopman could set up in business on his own account without the risk of a suit by his former employer. Mr Southgate, Q. C., having replied, The Master of the Rolls said that the chief difficulty was the defendants having solicited the customers of the plaintiffs. There could not Avell be any property in the cyphers claimed by the plaintiffs, nor could his Honor sec lioav the case came within the rule which protects from disclosure confidential communications. It was hardly a case to be decided on an interlocutory application, and he should, therefore, refuse the motion, making the costs costs in the cause.