Bulova Watch Co. v. Allerton Co.

216 F. Supp. 875, 138 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 184, 1963 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10060
District Court, N.D. Illinois·Decided March 14, 1963·No. Civ. A. No. 56 C 1049·Published

Opinion

ROBSON, District Judge.

This is a trade-mark, unfair competition, and injunction suit1 2involving plaintiff’s trade-marks covering “Bul-ova” 3 and some auxiliary words in respect to watches. The gist of the charge is defendants’ removal of the plaintiff’s Bulova watch movements from the cases in which Bulova had placed them in the process of manufacture, and reeasing said movements in defendants’ diamond cases with different crowns,3 and selling the resultant product to the public4 through catalogs. The name “Bulova” remains unchanged on the face of the movement. The catalog presentation described the placing of the Bulova (or Elgin or Hamilton movements) into a “Treasure Mates” case5 and makes a guarantee over the name of defendant The Allerton Company, Inc.6

By order of October 16, 1961, the issue of damages was reserved until the determination of the issue of liability.

[877] Outline of Contentions'. Plaintiff’s legal contentions are:

(1) The defendants’ watch is a “new construction” composed of a watch case manufactured by persons other than the plaintiff and a watch movement obtained from disassembling plaintiff’s watch. The sale of such newly constructed product under plaintiff’s trade-mark per se constitutes trade-mark infringement and unfair competition.7

(2) The sale of the defendants’ watches bearing plaintiff’s trade-mark constitutes trade-mark infringement and unfair competition because the defendants fail to disclose to the public fully and truthfully the manner in which they have utilized plaintiff’s original trademarked watch to produce defendants’ watch.8

(3) The instances of actual confusion appearing in the record confirm the legal conclusion that the defendants are guilty of trade-mark infringement and unfair competition.9

Defendants on the other hand argue:

(1) They have the right to incorporate a trade-marked article, to-wit, a watch movement bearing Bulova’s trade-mark, in a diamond decorated watch case not of Bulova’s manufacture; and to sell the completed product upon fairly and reasonably advising the purchaser of the nature of the complete product, to the end that the purchaser may not reasonably be confused.10

(2) Defendants’ catalog page, being the sole presentation by defendants of their product to the public, does fairly, reasonably and properly apprise each purchaser of the nature of his purchase, and no purchaser will reasonably be confused. The printed guarantee accompanying each of the defendants’ products likewise fairly and reasonably apprises each purchaser of the nature of his purchase, and no purchaser will reasonably be confused thereby.11

(3) Plaintiff by its conduct has tacitly admitted that defendants’ sale of such [878] Treasure Mates watches has been conducted candidly, honestly and fairly.12

Conclusion: The Court concludes there has been an infringement of plaintiff’s trade-mark in the recasing of its movement in defendants’ case, retaining plaintiff’s trade-mark on the face of the watch. The Court further concludes that the page in defendants’ catalog is of such a misleading character as to constitute unfair competition.

Facts Stipulated: The parties have stipulated to many of the material facts of this case. This stipulation reveals that plaintiff, The Bulova Watch Company, Inc.,13 a New York corporation, was preceded by the Bulova Watch Company. That company was founded by Joseph Bulova in 1875, incorporated on June 6, 1911, with change in name in 1923. The defendants, Illinois corporations, are The Allerton Company, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary14 of defendant A. Hirsch Co.15 The latter succeeded a partnership established by Adolph Hirsch in 1878, which incorporated in Illinois in 1918, and has always been conducted by immediate members of the Hirsch family.

Plaintiff is engaged primarily in the business of manufacturing, distributing and selling watches,16 and the name “Bulova” is widely and generally known to the public as identifying its watches. It is stipulated that both plaintiff and defendant Hirsch have enjoyed excellent reputations, both in the trade and financially.

Defendant Hirsch had held franchises from Elgin Watch Company,17 Hamilton Watch Company18 and Waltham Watch Company19 for the national distribution of their products, but these companies began successively in 1946 to distribute their products by direct sales to the retailers and terminated the Hirsch franchises.

In the watch industry the following are considered separate and distinct articles of commerce:' complete watches, watch movements, watch cases, watch bands, and other components and parts of watches. While some manufacturers sell watch movements and cases separately from completed watches, plaintiff has never done so. It does, however, sell watch components and parts, other than watch movements and cases as separate and distinct articles of commerce.

It is stipulated that for more than forty years various wholesale and retail watch dealers in the United States have transferred watch movements from the original cases into other cases,20 usually diamond-decorated, not made by the manufacturer of the watch movement, but the number of movements so transferred is but a small percentage of the total number of complete watches sold in the United States. Catalog houses have for many years listed watches with movements of nationally advertised manufacturers in watch cases not made by the manufacturer of the watch movement.21

Since 1946 defendant Hirsch has imported approximately a million Swiss [879] .movements from Switzerland and cased them in its own shop into American-made cases.

Plaintiff guarantees only watches that have been manufactured and assembled by it and its guaranty does not extend to defendants’ products.

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Bulova Watch Co. v. Allerton Co., 216 F. Supp. 875, 138 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 184, 1963 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10060 (N.D. Ill. 1963).

216 F. Supp. 875 (Bulova Watch Co. v. Allerton Co.) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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