Magazine Repeating Razor Co. v. Read Drug & Chemical Co.

30 F. Supp. 194, 43 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 332, 1939 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1983
CourtDistrict Court, D. Maryland
DecidedNovember 6, 1939
DocketNo. 2558
StatusPublished

This text of 30 F. Supp. 194 (Magazine Repeating Razor Co. v. Read Drug & Chemical Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Maryland primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Magazine Repeating Razor Co. v. Read Drug & Chemical Co., 30 F. Supp. 194, 43 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 332, 1939 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1983 (D. Md. 1939).

Opinion

WILLIAM C. COLEMAN, District Judge.

This is a trade mark and unfair competition case. The plaintiff asks specifically for the following relief: A decree permanently enjoining the defendant, and all persons acting on its behalf, (1) from using the word “Schick,” or any other word or mark confusedly similar thereto, as a trade mark or trade name, or in any other manner, in connection with the sale, advertising, or offering for sale of razors, shaving equipment, or shaving paraphernalia of any kind, not made by complainant; (2) from doing any other acts calculated to cause any products not made or sold by complainant to be passed off as and for complainant’s products, and from in any manner infringing complainant’s trade mark rights in the trade mark “Schick”, or unfairly competing with the complainant in any manner. There is also the usual request for an accounting for damages and profits, and for any other relief that the Court may feel the complainant is entitled to.

It will thus be seen that, briefly summarized, the complainant’s contention is that it is entitled to pre-empt the entire field of razors, shaving equipment, or paraphernalia of any kind as respects the use of the name “Schick”. The present controversy has as its real basis the fact that another company, Schick Dry Shaver, Inc., from which the present defendant buys, is the manufacturer and distributor of an electrically driven shaving device, known generally as “Schick Dry .Shaver”,.which has been very successful, commercially.

Whatever might otherwise have been the rights of the present plaintiff in the word “Schick”, by virtue of common law rights, or of any statutory registration of its trade mark, this Court finds that its rights are determined, for the purposes of this case, by a series of written contracts entered into between it and its predecessor company, the Sharp Manufacturing Corporation, and the inventor of the Shick Dry Shaver, Colonel Jacob Schick. All of these contracts were in issue and directly passed upon in a suit brought by the present plaintiff and its Canadian affiliate, Magazine Repeating Razor Company of Canada, against Schick Shaver, Ltd., a Canadian company, which wholly owns the. stock of the Schick Dry Shaver, Inc.; this suit having been brought in the Exchequer Court of Canada, and the opinion having been rendered on February 7th last, but, as is stipulated in the present case, no decree therein has yet been signed. Mr. Justice MacLean in that decision, having analyzed so carefully, and, as this Court thinks, so correctly, those contracts, I adopt his construction of them, and have made, largely from his opinion, the following resume of his findings with respect to them.

In 1925, an agreement was entered into between Schick and the Sharp Manufacturing Corporation, wherein Schick agreed to transfer to that Company the patent which he then owned and his several pending patent applications, the consideration being the payment of money and certain royalties. The Sharp Manufacturing Corporation was to have the exclusive right to manufacture, and to sell throughout the world, safety razors and blades covered by such patent and patent applications.

In this agreement, Schick assigned to the Sharp Manufacturing Corporation all trade marks, trade names and all other privileges relating to such safety razors and blades. In the event of default of the Sharp Manufacturing Corporation in respect of the conditions of the agreement, that corporation was to convey and deliver back to Schick any patents or patent applications, and any and all rights which it had acquired by yirtue of this agreement.

In May, 1927, a second agreement, supplemental to that of 1925, was entered into between Schick and the present plaintiff, which is the same company that had formerly been known as the Sharp Manufacturing Corporation, wherein Schick agreed to transfer to the plaintiff further applications for patents and inventions which he had made since the date of the first agreement, and which related to safety razors and their blades, and also certain inven[196]*196tions and discoveries in connection with razors or blades or machinery or processes for manufacturing same, and for which he had not yet filed an application for letters patent in the United States. One of the terms of that agreement was as follows: “Schick agrees that the corporation may use the name ‘Schick’ in connection with the razors, blades and other articles, on the sale of which royalties are payable under the provisions of this paragraph IV, and that such razors, blades or other articles, may be marked or associated with the name of ‘Schick’."

This agreement also provided that in the event of any default in the payment of royalties or any deficiency under paragraphs IV and V of the agreement, Schick had the right, upon giving a written notice of such default, and if the default continued for a stated period, to terminate the agreement, in which event the plaintiff obligated itself, inter alia, to assign and transfer back to Schick all letters patent and applications for letters patent, acquired from Schick under this agreement and the agreement of 1925, “and also the right to use the name ‘Schick’ in connection with the manufacture and sale of razors, blades, and other articles.”

Schick also agreed in paragraph XI of this same agreement that if, during the life of the agreement, he should “make any invention or discovery relating to the art of shaving, other than inventions or discoveries relating to razors or blades or machinery or process for the manufacture thereof”, he would disclose the same to the plaintiff, and make and file applications for letters patent thereon in the United States and such foreign countries as he deemed advisable, and would assign such applications for letters patent to the plaintiff, upon the terms provided in that agreement.

At the time that this latter agreement was entered into, Schick was engaged in developing his shaving machine. On January 1, 1929, two agreements were entered into between Schick and the plaintiff, in one of which the razor company released Schick from his obligation under paragraph XI of the agreement of 1927 previously referred to, in so far as that paragraph applied to “shaving machines,” that term as there used having reference to Schick’s electrical dry shaver, as distinguished from the safety razors which were Schick’s earlier inventions. The other agreement of the same date is designated as a license agreement. At this time Schick was the owner of the letters patent relating to an electrical shaving machine, and he also had applications for a patent pending, covering the same subject matter. This shaving machine had been given the name “Schick’s Dry Shaver”, and the license agreement states that the expression “Schick’s Dry Shavers” was used to describe shaving machines, and a brief description is given therein of such machines. Schick, licensed the plaintiff to manufacture and sell in the United States and foreign countries, under the name of Schick, the shaving machine, disclosed in his patents and all patent applications relative to the same; and the licensee, the plaintiff, agreed that all shaving machines which it or its agents might manufacture would be marked with the name “Schick”, and that they would be advertised, offered for sale and sold under the name “Schick.”

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30 F. Supp. 194, 43 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 332, 1939 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1983, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/magazine-repeating-razor-co-v-read-drug-chemical-co-mdd-1939.