Hoffmann-La Roche Chemical Works, Inc. v. Morganstern & Co.

281 F. 923, 1922 U.S. App. LEXIS 2190
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedMay 29, 1922
DocketNo. 290
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 281 F. 923 (Hoffmann-La Roche Chemical Works, Inc. v. Morganstern & Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hoffmann-La Roche Chemical Works, Inc. v. Morganstern & Co., 281 F. 923, 1922 U.S. App. LEXIS 2190 (2d Cir. 1922).

Opinion

ROGERS, Circuit Judge.

This case arises under the trade-mark laws of the United States, and is brought for an infringement of the plaintiff’s rights in its trade-mark. The court below denied the plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction.

[1] Both parties to this litigation are citizens of the state of New York, but jurisdiction of the subject-matter of this suit is not dependent on diversity of citizenship. Under Judicial Code, §‘ 24 (7), being Comp. St. § 991, tire District Courts have jurisdiction of all suits-under the trade-mark laws.

In June, 1904, the firm of E. Hoffmann-Ra Roche & Co., of Basle, Switzerland, adopted as a trade-mark for a certain preparation for treating diseases of the heart the term “Digalen,” and in the same month it commenced the sale of such preparation in the markets of the-United States, and marked all containers wherein the said preparation was contained with the trade-mark “Digalen.” It sold its product under this name also throughout England, France, and the German Empire. This product of the Swiss firm attained a very wide sale and was recognized as superior to other similar preparations on the market. On October 25, 1904, it registered its said trade-mark in the United States Patent Office, and a trade-mark certificate No. 43593 was issued to it 'on the said date.

On May 25, 1910, the aforesaid firm by an instrument in writing sold and assigned to the Hoffmann-Da Roche Chemical Works, a corporation organized under the' laws of the state of New York and the-plaintiff herein, its entire right, title, and interest in and to the said trade-mark “Digalen” and to the said trade-mark registration therefor and the good will appertaining thereto, which instrument was recorded in the United States Patent Office on May 26, 1910. Thereafter the-plaintiff carried on the business in the United States, which previously had been carried on by the firm of F. Hoffmann-Da Roche & Co., and continued to sell the aforesaid preparation in the same manner as it had’ been previously carried on by the firm of F. IToffmann-Da Roche.

The product which is alleged to infringe, and which is sold by the defendant under the name “Digalen,” is not manufactured or compounded by it but is a foreign product. . It is not, however, made by the plaintiff’s assignor, the Swiss firm of F. Hoffmann-Da Roche & Co.. But it is made in Germany by the Chemische Werke Grenzach Aktiengesellschaft. The German concern was founded in 1916, during the war, as a German company, by a German syndicate controlled by the Disconto-Gesellschaft. Its own publications show that it is an independent enterprise and a competitor of the Swiss firm of F. Hoffmann-Da Roche & Co.

The fact that the Swiss firm of F. Hoffmann-Da Roche & Co. owned and operated a. plant at Grenzach, Germany, and there manufactured Digalen, and in 1916 sold its plant to the German corporation, transferring to it its entire German business, including physical assets, patents, trade-marks, and good will “in so far as the empire of Germany was concerned,” and that the infringing product was thereafter manufactured by this new 'German corporation, does not appear to us to be [925]*925of controlling significance in the present case. The fact remains that the product which the defendant bought and imported into the United States was not manufactured by the Swiss firm, and does not, upon the label attached, purport to be the genuine product of that firm; neither is there anything upon it which informs the public that its manufacturer is even the successor of that firm. Whatever the rights of the German manufacturer in Germany may be as between it and the Swiss firm, whatever the rights resulting from the contract may be as between the parties to it in Germany, one who purchases from the German manufacturer is not thereby enabled to bring into the markets of the United States a product which the label shows is manufactured by the German manufacturer and have it accorded exactly the same recognition which we might feel compelled to accord it if it had been manufactured by the Swiss firm originally entitled to the use of the trademark affixed thereto.

The infringing product was bought by the defendant in the open market in Germany, from a jobber, and was imported by the defendant into this country and sold in the same condition and with the same label as when put up and sold by the German manufacturer. The label on the German product has conspicuously printed upon it the trademark name, “Digalen.” At the bottom of the label appear in much smaller type the words “Chemische Werke Grenzach A. G. Grenzach (Baden).” While the plaintiff’s bottle has similarly placed upon it the trade-mark, “Digalen,” and at the bottom the words “The HoffmannLa "Roche Chemical Works, New York.”

The plaintiff’s bottle has on the label the words “Alcohol — ICc (16 min.) contains 0.3 mgr. Digitoxinum soluble Cloetta.” The defendant’s bottle has on the label “Digitoxinum soluble Cloetta.”

The plaintiff’s bottlejias on it the following:

“DOSAGE: Dose per os. 8 to 32 minims three times a day. If injected intravenously powerful results may be obtained with a dose of 15 mms, in from 2 to 5 minutes. Only in exceptional cases will it be necessary to repeat this dose after one or two hours.’’

The defendant’s bottle contains no reference to dosage.

Digalen, it appears, is a medicinal preparation which is prescribed by physicians for the treatment of heart disease, and it is used so generally that in one of the affidavits submitted to the court below it is said that “it is used in practically every hospital in this country and in the government services.” It is used as an heroic measure in extreme cases of heart failure, and in such cases is generally injected intravenously. A remedy so used must be pure, sterile, and prepared with the greatest care and precaution. It is a poison, and should be administered according to standard dosage, which dosage the plaintiff has always printed on its containers or bottles. The physician regulates the amount of Digalen that is to be administered to the patient according to his knowledge of the patient’s condition, but the minimum and maximum dosage recommended by the plaintiff on its labels are relied upon by physicians in giving the prescription.

Digalen in the United States means one thing—the plaintiff’s product. A product made in Germany, which is brought into this country and [926]*926sold under the trade-mark of the plaintiff, which deceives the public, and is sold here because of the established reputation of the plaintiff’s product, is an infringement of the plaintiff’s trade-mark.

The court below was presented with the affidavit of a chemist who for the past 25 years had been employed in that capacity by one of the largest wholesale drug houses in the United States, and who had graduated at one of the English colleges and was a member of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, as well as of the American Pharmaceutical Association and of various other chemical and pharmaceutical societies. His statement was:

“Our concern has been handling Digalen for more than 10 years supplying it to druggists on their orders. The term ‘Digalen’ has been, as long as I am familiar with the preparation, known and recognized as the trade-mark of the Hoffmann-La Roche Chemical Works and all orders for Digalen are filled with the preparation put up by the Hoffman-La Roche Chemical Works.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
281 F. 923, 1922 U.S. App. LEXIS 2190, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hoffmann-la-roche-chemical-works-inc-v-morganstern-co-ca2-1922.