Electronic Communications, Inc. v. Electronic Components for Industry Co.

308 F. Supp. 267, 163 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 461, 1969 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13236
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Missouri
DecidedOctober 1, 1969
DocketNo. 67 C 440(2)
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 308 F. Supp. 267 (Electronic Communications, Inc. v. Electronic Components for Industry Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Electronic Communications, Inc. v. Electronic Components for Industry Co., 308 F. Supp. 267, 163 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 461, 1969 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13236 (E.D. Mo. 1969).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM

MEREDITH, District Judge.

This case was tried to the Court without a jury. Plaintiff, Electronic Communications, Inc., is a New Jersey corporation, with a principal place of business in St. Petersburg, Florida. Defendants, Electronic Components for Industry Co., ECI Semiconductors, Inc., and ECI Chicago, Inc., are Missouri corporations, with their principal place of business in St. Louis, Missouri. This Court has jurisdiction over the parties and the subject matter of this action under 28 U.S.C. § 1338 and 15 U.S.C. § 1121. This is an action for infringement of plaintiff’s trademark, “ECI”, registered in the United States Patent Office, and for unfair competition by defendants for use of such trademark and plaintiff’s trade name. Plaintiff is seeking an injunction to prohibit defendants’ use of the mark “ECI”.

The plaintiff’s registrations are No. 706,588, registered November 1, 1960, No. 706,255, registered October 25, 1960, No. 775,282, registered August 18, 1964, No. 836,699, registered October 10, 1967, and No. 849,592, registered May 21, 1968. Each of these registrations is for the trademark “ECI” in block capital letters and in that order, portrayed alone or with an accompanying design. According to the certificates of registration, these marks have been used in connection with radio transmitting and receiving equipment and component parts therefor, electronic circuitry, components, multiplexers, power amplifiers, activators, data link equipment, mobile communications terminals, test and check-out sets for radio-transmitting and radio receiving equipment, flight control equipment and radio-channel multiplexing equipment; the marks have also been used for engineering and consulting services rendered to others on a contract basis, namely, conducting surveys, design studies and research related to electronics, communications, and data processing. Plaintiff has also used “ECI” as a trade name, in connection with its business as a whole and in its subsidiary operations.

Plaintiff first began to use the mark “ECI” in early 1957, at which time the parent company was Air Associates, Incorporated. The mark “ECI” was a natural contraction of Electronic Communications, Inc., which was the wholly-owned subsidiary of Air Associates. In April 1957, following stockholder approval, the name of this subsidiary was adopted as plaintiff’s name, and the “ECI” use, which had already begun prior to this formal change of name, continued.

During the period following its first use in 1957, the mark “ECI” has been used by plaintiff, throughout the United States and abroad, in connection with the sale of goods and services valued in excess of $265,000,000.00. Since its first “ECI” use, plaintiff has disbursed in excess of $1,000,000.00 in advertising and promotional expense in connection with the mark “ECI”.

Defendants’ use of the trademark, service mark, and trade name “ECI” is charged to be an infringement of plaintiff’s registered marks and to constitute unfair competition with plaintiff, for use of plaintiff’s trademarks, service marks and trade names. Defendants have used “ECI” in connection with the sale or offering for sale electronic components and related items.

As a contraction or abbreviation, the mark “ECI” is completely arbitrary and fanciful and is not descriptive or suggestive of any of the goods, which may generally be termed electronic equipment, in connection with which the mark is used. Neither is the mark “ECI” descriptive or suggestive of any of the plaintiff’s business or services, [269]*269which may be generally termed electronics business and services, in connection with which the mark is used.

Plaintiff has diligently enforced its rights to the trademark “ECI”. In correspondence and in prior litigation, third parties have been caused to cease use of “ECI” in recognition of plaintiff’s said mark. The present action was brought after defendants had ignored plaintiff’s complaining correspondence and soon after successful conclusion of the prior litigation. Evidence was presented that, in plaintiff’s prior litigation, actual confusion had resulted from use of “ECI” on electronic goods of both litigants.

Defendants’ president introduced evidence that certain other “ECI” trademarks were presently known to him. Defendants’ president testified that there was a 1968 advertisement in which “ECI” appeared on behalf of a Connecticut company, and that he had received in 1968 that company’s catalog of electric switches. He said he had corresponded in 1968 with a Massachusetts company in the printed-circuit business that referred to itself as “ECI” in the text of its letter. He said that in 1968 he had received promotional catalog information from a New Jersey company showing “ECI” on electronic counters. Finally, he told of his associate’s 1968 correspondence with a California company in the electroplating business and having “ECI” on its letterhead. No proof of a trademark use was made as to any of these companies, and the witness testified only as to replies to correspondence which he initiated after litigation commenced, in the name of Edemco, Inc., which is another one of the family of Missouri corporations having the same principal offices and officers as defendants.

Plaintiff’s vice president, secretary and treasurer, testified that he had no prior knowledge of any of the four third-party companies to which defendants’ president had testified, except that he had recently seen an advertisement for the Connecticut Company and that the matter of complaining as to that company’s “ECI” use was pending, in the hands of counsel. Defendants did not show that plaintiff had knowledge of any infringing trademark uses and failed to take action against alleged in-fringers. Plaintiff has enforced its trademark rights against third parties.

Defendant Components is the oldest of the defendants, having been incorporated August 18, 1958, and first used the mark “ECI” in connection with electronic goods when, after formation of defendant Semiconductors in 1961, it began to share with defendant Semiconductors the same printed form for packing slips, billheads, and the like. Such documents then began to, and still do, carry the instruction to customers: “Make checks payable to ECI”.

The first use of “ECI” by any of the defendants on electronic goods or on containers for electronic goods occurred after formation of defendant Semiconductors in 1961, when that defendant commenced to use a shipping label featuring “ECI”. This was after the first registration of “ECI” by plaintiff in 1960.

The first of defendants’ catalogs was issued in 1962 and featured “ECI” in connection with the offering for sale of a wide variety of electronic goods, including amateur radio equipment, antennas, remote controls, radio control system components, radio receivers and transmitters, electronic test instrumentation and electronic component parts. Defendants’ president testified that there were aircraft builders and elec-trospace manufacturers in their clientele of 1962, and these customers would have been among those solicited by defendants’ catalog distribution. Defendants have never refused to sell a customer anything from their 1962 “ECI” catalog, and the introduction contains the encouraging words that: “Many new items will be stocked by ECI * * * that are not listed.”

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308 F. Supp. 267, 163 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 461, 1969 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13236, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/electronic-communications-inc-v-electronic-components-for-industry-co-moed-1969.