Morgenstern Chemical Co. v. G. D. Searle & Co.

150 F. Supp. 726, 113 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 176, 1957 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3775
District Court, D. New Jersey·Decided April 3, 1957·No. Civ. A. No. 263-56·Published·Cited by 3 cases

Opinion

WORTENDYKE, District Judge.

There is diversity of citizenship between the parties to this action and the minimum jurisdictional requirement exists. The Court has jurisdiction of the parties.

The plaintiff, a corporation of the State of New York, is seeking an injunction, together with an accounting of profits and counsel fee, to restrain further use by the defendant, a corporation of the State of Illinois, of the name Mietine, which the defendant has adopted for one of its products. Plaintiff alleges such a similarity in spelling, sound and suggestiveness to the name Micturin, which the plaintiff had previously adopted for one of its products, as to render likely confusion of the products of the respective parties in the minds of purchasers thereof. The action is not for infringement of a registered trade mark or trade name under the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C.A. § 1051 et seq. Plaintiff claims to have coined and thereby to have acquired a property [728] right in the name which it adopted for its product, and charges unfair competition or unfair trade practice on the part of the defendant in adopting a name for its product of such similarity as to be confusing to those persons, specifically physicians and pharmacists, having occasion to prescribe and dispense the pharmaceutical products of the respective parties designated by the allegedly similar names. A brief review of the evidence will point up the questions, the resolution of which the Court is called upon to make.

The plaintiff was incorporated in November 1939, and Alexander V. Morgen-stern has been continuously its president and in general managerial control of its business throughout its existence, except for a period between 1948 and 1950 when he retired from that office. During this interim Mr. Morgenstern remained as consultant while the business was being conducted by his two sons. The sole place of business of the plaintiff is located in Mt. Vernon, New York, to which it moved from New York City in July, 1953. Plaintiff corporation acquired from Mor-genstern the right to use the business name of Physicians Drug Company, under which the plaintiff marketed its products, including that involved in this litigation.

During late 1949 or early 1950, while Mr. Morgenstern’s two sons were operating plaintiff’s business, the father devised a formula for a urinary tract antiseptic embodied in the form of enteric tablets, to be taken by mouth. For these tablets he conceived and adopted the name “Mic-turin” which he felt to be suggestive of miction (urination) and micturition (the passage of urine); each of which is derived from the Latin micturire, meaning to urinate.

The plaintiff undertook the promotion and marketing of these urinary antiseptic tablets under the name which had been conceived by Mr. Morgenstern. The latter composed the labelling and promotional literature, cleared the product with the United States Food and Drug Administration, and planned and directed, in behalf of the plaintiff, the promotional and marketing procedures. These procedures began with a circular letter, dated March 22, 1950, addressed to 102 wholesale druggists located in various places throughout the United States, which was followed by unsolicited shipments, on consignment, of a dozen or two of boxes of the product, invoiced to each of the consignees. Another promotional procedure pursued by Mr. Morgenstern involved the use of so-called “return” post cards bearing the names of some of the plaintiff’s products, with places on the “return” card, opposite the name of each product, for the insertion of a check or cross mark to indicate the interest of the addressee in the particular product. These cards were mailed to some 102,000 physicians in various localities in the United States. Two samples of this tablet, enclosed in an envelope bearing printed information about the product, together with a card bearing advertising text relative thereto, all composed by Mr. Morgenstern, were mailed to those physicians who indicated an interest in the product by use of this return post card.

Commencing with the year 1951 plaintiff caused its product to be listed, under the name “Micturin”, in the Blue Book and in the Red Book, both annual cat-alogues of proprietary pharmaceuticals widely circulated among the drug trade.

Plaintiff’s product was sold in lots of 50 tablets, each lot packaged in a square cardboard box bearing a label reading as follows: “50 Micturin Tablets — Each Tablet Contains: Methenamine — -3-Yz gr. Aminophyllin — %gr. Hyoscyamin alk.— Yioo gr. Caution: To be dispensed only by or on the prescription of a physician, according to directions. Literature available to physicians on request. If the urine is alkaline, an ‘acidifier’ (sodium or ammonium biphosphate) should be taken. Distributed by Physicians Drug Company, New York 14, New York.” These boxes were advertised for sale at the retail price of $2 per box, or $16 for a dozen boxes.

The Micturin tablets, circular in shape, pink in color, and glossy surfaced, were actually manufactured for the plaintiff [729] "by Strong Cobb Company, Inc., of Cleveland, Ohio, and later by The Arner Co., Inc., of Buffalo, New York, in accordance with Mr. Morgenstern’s formula. The plaintiff boxed and labelled the tablets and distributed them under the name •of Physicians Drug Company. There •appears on the tablet no name, mark or symbol to indicate its source or proprietorship.

Plaintiff’s advertising material relates that the tablets are indicated for disinfection of the urinary tract, control of inflammation and pain, evacuation of .stagnant urine and relaxation of sphincter spasm in genito-urinary cases involving micturition trouble (nephritis, pyelitis, urethritis, cystitis and pros-tatitis). The same cards point out that, by means of the enteric coating, the tablets are protected from attack by gastric hydrochloric acid so as to permit development of full therapeutic activity in the urinary organs. The distributor suggests that Micturin tablets are preferable to the toxic antiseptics (which may exert undesirable side-effects) for prolonged administration in “catarrhs” of the bladder and urethra in both sexes. The advertising further claims that these tablets are valuable “in mild infectious processes common in elderly persons, and for prophylaxis when catheterization is re•quired.”

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Morgenstern Chemical Co. v. G. D. Searle & Co., 150 F. Supp. 726, 113 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 176, 1957 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3775 (D.N.J. 1957).

150 F. Supp. 726 (Morgenstern Chemical Co. v. G. D. Searle & Co.) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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