Ammon & Person v. Narragansett Dairy Co.

262 F. 880, 1919 U.S. App. LEXIS 1979
CourtCourt of Appeals for the First Circuit
DecidedNovember 18, 1919
DocketNos. 1404, 1405
StatusPublished
Cited by20 cases

This text of 262 F. 880 (Ammon & Person v. Narragansett Dairy Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the First Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ammon & Person v. Narragansett Dairy Co., 262 F. 880, 1919 U.S. App. LEXIS 1979 (1st Cir. 1919).

Opinion

ANDERSON, Circuit Judge.

This is a trade-mark infringement case. The plaintiff is a wholesale dealer in oleomargarine, organized as a corporation under the laws of New Jersey, with headquarters at Jersey City. It and its predecessors in title have used since 1891 the trade-mark “Queen of the West” on oleomargarine sold by them. In [881]*881this name the word “Queen” is obviously the dominant part, as the court below held.

[ 1 ] The defendant is a Rhode Island corporation, organized in August, 1915. It manufactures and sells oleomargarine at Providence, R. I. The Narragansett Dairy Company (not the defendant) applied the trade-name “Queen” to oleomargarine manufactured and sold by it at Providence during the period 1909 to August, 1915. • On August 31, 1915, the oleomargarine and other tangible assets of the old Narragansett Company were seized by the collector of internal revenue, under a warrant of distraint for nonpayment of taxes, and sold. This property was bought in by one Matthews, and transferred on the same date to the defendant company, which at once began and has continued the manufacture of oleomargarine at the same place, selling it under the trade-mark “Queen.” While the plaintiff has registered “Queen” as its trade-mark, we agree with the court below that the case must be determined on common-law principles, and that no rights now in question have been acquired out of registration.

The earlier Narragansett Company adopted the use of the word “Queen” in good faith and with no intent to infringe upon any rights of the plaintiff. Both the plaintiff and the old company sold their goods as their own to their own customers. There is no evidence of any confusion of goods or of any unfair competition.

It thus appears that up to September, 1915, two concerns were carrying on the same general line of business, partly in the same territory, each operating under trade-marks likely at some time to confuse the purchasing public, but each in fact reaching its own customers, and without any real confusion in the trade.

The District Court held that “the plaintiff’s right to an injunction is not free from doubt, but seems justified in order to prevent confusion likely to arise in the natural expansion of trade. * * * The plaintiff’s equity rests upon its showing a prior use of the trade-mark ‘Queen of the West’ and of the trade-name ‘Queen.’ ”

The court below also held that it was “unnecessary to determine whether the defendant has succeeded to the rights, if any, of the earlier Narragansett Company.” An injunction was granted, but the plaintiff’s prayer for an accounting for profits and damages was denied. Both parties appealed.

The decision of the District Court was made on December 12, 1918. On December 9, 1918, the Supreme Court had decided the case of United Drug Co. v. Rectanus Co., 248 U. S. 90, 39 Sup. Ct. 48, 63 L. Ed. 141, with a most illuminating opinion by Mr. Justice Pitney. This case was not cited by the District Court, and would not, in the natural course of events, be in print or otherwise available for its guidance.

The legally significant facts in the Rectanus Case are, we think, substantially on all fours with the case at bar. In that case, it appeared that as early as 1877 Mrs. Regis, at-Haverhill, Mass., had adopted the word “Rex” as a trade-mark for certain medicines prepared by her. These medicines were thereafter sold by her and her successor in title, the United Drug Company, under this trade-mark in Massachusetts [882]*882and neighboring states. In 1883, Rectanus, a druggist of Louisville, Ky., applied the same name “Rex” to certain medicines prepared and sold by him in Louisville, and later in other parts of Kentucky. In the course of the expansion of the trade of the United Drug Company, the two concerns, using the same trade-name for competing products, came into collision in Kentucky. The plaintiff claimed an exclusive right on the ground of prior use. The District Court sustained the plaintiff’s contention. 206 Fed. 570. The Court of Appeals reversed the District Court and ordered the bill dismisesd. 226 Fed. 545, 141 C. C. A. 301. The decree of the appellate court was affirmed by the Supreme Court. The principles held controlling in that case are thus stated, 248 U. S. 96, 39 Sup. Ct 50, 63 L. Ed. 141:

“Tine entire argument for the petitioner is summed up in the contention that whenever' the first user of a trade-marlv has been reasonably diligent in extending the territory of his trade, and as a result of such extension has in good faith come into competition with a later user of the same mark, who in equal good faith has extended his trade locally before invasion of his field by the first user, so that finally it comes to pass that the rival traders are offering competitive merchandise in a common market under the same trademark, the later user should be enjoined at the suit of the prior adopter, even though the latter be the last to enter the competitive field and the former have already established a trade there. * * *
“The asserted doctrine is based upon the fundamental error of supposing that a trade-mark right is a right in gross or at large, like a statutory copyright or a patent for an invention, to either of which, in truth, it has little of no analogy. Canal Co. v. Clark, 13 Wall. 311, 322 [20 L. Ed. 581]; McLean v. Fleming, 96 U. S. 245, 254 [24 L. Ed. 828]. There is no such thing as property in a trade-mark except as a right appurtenant to an established business or trade in connection with which the mark is employed. The law of trademarks is but a part of the broader law of unfair competition; the right to a particular mark grows out of its use, not its mere adoption; its function is simply to designate the goods as the product of a particular trader and to protect his good will against the sale of another’s product as his; and it is not the subject of property except in connection with an existing business. Hanover Milling Co. v. Metcalf, 240 U. S. 403, 412-414 [36 Sup. Ct. 357, 60 L. Ed. 713].
“The owner of a trade-mark may not, like the proprietor of a patented invention, make a negative and merely prohibitive use of it as a monopoly. See United States v. Bell Telephone Co., 167 U. S. 224, 250 [17 Sup. Ct. 809, 42 L. Ed. 144]; Bement v. National Harrow Co., 186 U. S. 70, 90 [22 Sup. Ct. 747, 46 L. Ed. 1058]; Paper Bag Patent Case, 210 U. S. 405, 424 [28 Sup. Ct. 748, 52 L. Ed. 1122].
“In truth, a trade-mark confers no monopoly whatever in a proper sense, but is merely a convenient means for facilitating the protection of one’s good will in trade by placing a distinguishing mark or symbol — a commercial signature — upon the merchandise >or the package in which it is sold.

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Bluebook (online)
262 F. 880, 1919 U.S. App. LEXIS 1979, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ammon-person-v-narragansett-dairy-co-ca1-1919.