International Breweries, Inc. v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc.

230 F. Supp. 662, 142 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 128, 1964 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9135
CourtDistrict Court, M.D. Florida
DecidedMarch 13, 1964
DocketCiv. T. No. 4167
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 230 F. Supp. 662 (International Breweries, Inc. v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, M.D. Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
International Breweries, Inc. v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 230 F. Supp. 662, 142 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 128, 1964 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9135 (M.D. Fla. 1964).

Opinion

LIEB, District Judge.

In this suit plaintiff seeks to enjoin the defendant from infringing a trademark registration issued by the United States of America under the Lanham Act of 1946 (Title 15, U.S.C.A. § 1051 et seq.) for the trademark “Bavarian’s” owned by plaintiff and used by it in the sale and distribution of its beer. The defendant has denied any such infringement and by counterclaim seeks to enjoin plaintiff from committing alleged acts of unfair competition to defendant in the promotion and sale of plaintiff’s beer labeled “Bavarian’s Select” in areas where the name of defendant’s beer labeled “Busch Bavarian” has established a secondary meaning. Determination of any questions of accounting and damages has been deferred by order of the Court until after determination of liability in the cause.

Voluminous evidence was offered by each of the parties upon the issues in[663]*663volved. The Court, having considered such evidence and the briefs submitted by the respective counsel, now makes the following Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law:

FINDINGS OF FACT

1. Plaintiff, International Breweries, Inc., herein referred to as International, is a Michigan corporation, with its principal office and place of business at Detroit, Michigan, and it operates breweries in Buffalo, New York; Covington, Kentucky; Tampa, Florida; and Find-lay, Ohio.

2. Defendant, Anheuser-Busch, Incorporated, herein referred to as Anheuser-Busch, is a Missouri corporation, with its principal office and place of business at St. Louis, Missouri. It also has breweries at other places: Newark, New Jersey; Los Angeles, California; and Tampa, Florida.

3. International and Anheuser-Busch are each engaged in the brewing of beer and the distribution and sale thereof in interstate commerce.

4. International brews, among others, a brand of beer called “Bavarian’s Select”. It is known in the trade as a popular priced beer.

5. Anheuser-Busch also brews several brands of beer: “Miehelob” (a high priced premium beer), “Budweiser” (a premium priced beer), and “Busch Bavarian” (known in the trade as a popular priced beer).

6. On April 30, 1959, plaintiff purchased all of the assets of Bavarian Brewing Company, formerly of Covington, Kentucky, which assets included all trademark rights and goodwill held by that company in a Certificate of Registration No. 609,692 for the trademark “Bavarian’s”, which trademark was registered to the said Bavarian Brewing Company by the United States Patent Office on July 26, 1955, under the provisions of the Trademark Act of 1946 (Title 15, U.S.C.A. § 1051 et seq.) commonly known as the “Lanham Act”. Plaintiff is now, and was at all times since the said purchase and assignment, the owner of the said trademark.

7. From 1946 until the said sale to plaintiff, the Bavarian Brewing Company sold in interstate and local commerce a beer marked “Bavarian’s Select” beer. After the said sale, plaintiff continued the sale of the said labeled beer in local and interstate commerce. Neither of these companies made any other use of the word “Bavarian’s”.

8. For some years prior to 1955, Anheuser-Busch did not produce a popular priced beer. Early in that year it introduced into the trade such a beer under the name of “Busch Lager”. This beer was a failure due to poor taste. Its taste was improved after some months of trial, and its name was then changed to “Busch Bavarian” upon adoption of an advertising program featuring snow scenes from the area of Bavaria in Germany.

9. In August, 1955, defendant commenced marketing its Busch Bavarian Beer in an area limited to Kansas and the western part of Missouri.

10. On September 9, 1955, Bavarian Brewing Company filed a suit against defendant in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Western Division, as Civil Action No. 3649. In that litigation, the plaintiff, Bavarian Brewing Company, claimed that it was the owner of a common law secondary meaning trademark in the word “Bavarian” and was the owner of the registered trademark “Bavarian’s”. It was further claimed that defendant, by selling its Busch Bavarian beer in the Missouri-Kansas area and by threatening to expand its sale of said product into the rest of the world, infringed the rights that plaintiff had to both of said trademarks. The complaint asked for a nationwide injunction restraining defendant from using said trademarks, or any colorable imitation thereof, anywhere in the advertising or sale of its beer. Defendant, in that suit, denied that plaintiff had the exclusive right to the use of the word “Bavarian” in connection with [664]*664the sale of beer, denied that the words “Bavarian” and “Bavarian’s” had ceased to be geographically or otherwise descriptive of the product or had acquired a secondary meaning, and further denied that the plaintiff’s registered trademark “Bavarian’s” was valid and urged that the Court cancel this registration on the ground that plaintiff had obtained it by fraud.

11. After trial of that action, the District Court, sitting at Cincinnati, Ohio, entered its opinion and findings of fact and conclusions of law on March 25, 1957, reported in Bavarian Brewing Co. v. Anheuser-Busch, D.C., 150 F.Supp. 210. In that opinion, the Court held that the plaintiff in that suit had failed to prove that it had the exclusive right to the trademark “Bavarian” but that, by reason of long continued use by plaintiff of the word “Bavarian” and the word “Bavarian’s” in the sale of its beer, these words had acquired a secondary significance as denoting the beer of the plaintiff in the area confined to the northern part of the State of Kentucky, the southeastern part of the State of Indiana, and the southern part of the State of Ohio. The District Court, in its decision, also held that plaintiff’s registration of its trademark “Bavarian’s” was not obtained by fraud from the Patent Office and refused to cancel said registration. The Court further held in that decision that, as a matter of law, the plaintiff was not entitled to an injunction restraining defendant from using the word “Bavarian” in connection with the distribution and sale of its beer anywhere except in plaintiff’s distributing area in the said three states. The Court then entered a permanent injunction restraining defendant from using the words “Bavarian” or “Bavarian’s”, or any colorable imitation thereof, in plaintiff’s distributing area consisting of Northern Kentucky, Southeastern Indiana and Southern Ohio.

12. Both parties appealed the decision of the District Court for the Southern District of Ohio to the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Defendant contended in its appeal, cause No. 13363, that the Court should not have granted any injunction at all, but should have cancelled the registration of the registered mark “Bavarian’s”. Bavarian Brewing Company contended in its appeal, cause No. 13364, that it was entitled to' an injunction throughout the states of Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky, to provide for reasonable expansion of its business and that, by virtue of its Lanham Act registration of the trademark “Bavarian’s”, it was entitled to a nationwide injunction without limit to the area where the plaintiff was doing business.

13. On February 25, 1959, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit entered its decision on these appeals, which is reported in 264 F.2d 88.

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230 F. Supp. 662, 142 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 128, 1964 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9135, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/international-breweries-inc-v-anheuser-busch-inc-flmd-1964.