New England Confectionery Co. v. C. A. Briggs Co.

152 N.E. 712, 256 Mass. 456, 1926 Mass. LEXIS 1259
CourtMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
DecidedJune 28, 1926
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 152 N.E. 712 (New England Confectionery Co. v. C. A. Briggs Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
New England Confectionery Co. v. C. A. Briggs Co., 152 N.E. 712, 256 Mass. 456, 1926 Mass. LEXIS 1259 (Mass. 1926).

Opinion

Pierce, J.

The case comes before this court on appeals of the plaintiff from the interlocutory decree overruling its exceptions to and confirming the report of the master, to a denial of its motion to recommit the report, and to the final decree dismissing the bill of complaint with costs.

The material facts found by the master briefly stated are as follows: Both the plaintiff and defendant were incorporated in 1901 and since that time have been engaged in the manufacture of candy, the business of the plaintiff being in Boston and that of the defendant in Cambridge. The bill charged that the defendant was engaged in unfair competition, in that it had copied for a wrapper of a candy wafer, manufactured and sold by it, a label used by the plaintiff on its own candy wafer wrapper; that the defendant’s label was an imitation of the plaintiff’s, which the latter had recorded as [459]*459a label for candy with the Secretary of the Commonwealth, on December 4, 1922, No. 9742. The wafers of the plaintiff are sold throughout the United States, have a large sale in New England and Massachusetts, and are well known to the public; the wafers sold by the defendant are sold throughout the United States, but there is no evidence as to the amount of sales. For many years wafers in plain and in assorted flavors have been sold in rolls, varying in weight from two and one half ounces to three ounces. Formerly, wafer rolls were wrapped in opaque glazed paper, but in 1910 the plaintiff and defendant both used transparent paper, the plaintiff a little earlier than the defendant. The plaintiff and defendant are competitors in business. The wafer rolls of each retail for five cents per roll.

“The plaintiff’s wafer rolls are a simple form of candy and are retailed at such low figures that they especially appeal to and find a large market among children, foreigners and illiterates. They are sold in large quantities to the travelling and amusement seeking public, on trains, excursion boats and other conveyances, in railway stations waiting rooms, and in recreation parks, and other places of amusement. They are offered for sale in the baskets or trays of train boys, or on the counters of news or candy stands located in subway or railroad stations or on boats or in amusement resorts, as well as by other small shopkeepers and petty retailers; ordinarily a considerable number of said packages or rolls being arranged side by side in a box or tray carried about by the vendor, or lying upon the counter or in the shop window, and so displayed as to catch the eye of the chance passer-by.”

In May, 1906, the plaintiff adopted a label which had a seal in the center with the word “Neceo” on the left and the word “Wafers” on the right. This label had solid black lettering on yellow glazed paper. Since that time “Neceo Wafers” have been sold by the plaintiff always in a roll and since 1914 in transparent paper. The label used has always borne a seal which is the trade mark of the plaintiff and is registered in the United States Patent Office and has the word “Neceo” on the left of the seal and the word “Wafers” [460]*460on the right, the words always having been of substantially the same size as the plaintiff’s present label. In 1910 the plaintiff put wafers called the “Peerless Wafers” and “Hub Wafers” in transparent paper, the words “Hub” and “Wafers” being in blue letters and the Neceo seal in red, the blue and red being the same or nearly the same shade as those used in the present roll. In 1914 the plaintiff put out “Neceo Wafers” in transparent paper with the words “Neceo” and “Wafers” in blue and the seal between in red. The label was printed once on the roll until 1921. This is known as single printing. Double printing, that is printing the label twice on the roll, was first used by the plaintiff in July, 1921. Double printing was not used on wafer rolls prior to 1921 and has not since been used except by the plaintiff and the defendant. Having the double form of label the roll of the plaintiff has become widely and popularly known.

The defendant has manufactured and sold Boston Wafers since 1906, but the record does not disclose the extent of the sales or whether they were equal to the sales of the plaintiff. Before 1910, the defendant used for the rolls a wrapper of opaque yellow paper, on which was printed a scroll with the word “Boston” on the left and the word “Wafers” on the righk, the lettering being in black. In 1910 the defendant adopted a transparent paper with a scroll in the center, the word “Boston” on the left and the word “Wafers” on the right, the lettering and the scroll being in blue. In 1917, the defendant adopted a label with the word “Briggs” in the center, the word “Boston” on the left and the word “Wafers” on the right, the word “Briggs” being in red and “Boston” and “Wafers” in blue. The defendant did not use the scroll on its label from 1917 to 1922.

In June, 1922, the defendant adopted its present label, which has in a scroll lined in red on a white background the words “C. A. Briggs’s Co.” in red; and on the left of the scroll, the word “Boston” and on the right the word “Wafers,” both in blue. The blue color in the label of 1922 was darker than that previously used by the defendant, and the words were larger, the area of blue and red colors being about three times the color area in the defendant’s prior label. [461]*461On this label the defendant first used double printing, and the report states that it did not appear that prior to this time double printing had been used by any one other than the plaintiff, who used it for the first time in July, 1921.

“Prior to the adoption of the label complained of in 1922 an employee of the defendant suggested that a new label be adopted by the defendant. At this time the defendant thought that the plaintiff’s wafer roll was the largest selling roll on the market. A designer was consulted, shown the label of the plaintiff and asked to design something better. Various designs were offered by the designer and discussed by the defendant’s president, two employees and the designer. Finally the label complained of was adopted.”

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
152 N.E. 712, 256 Mass. 456, 1926 Mass. LEXIS 1259, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/new-england-confectionery-co-v-c-a-briggs-co-mass-1926.