Shredded Wheat Co. v. Humphrey Cornell Co.

244 F. 508, 1917 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1064
CourtDistrict Court, D. Connecticut
DecidedMay 2, 1917
DocketNo. 1436
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 244 F. 508 (Shredded Wheat Co. v. Humphrey Cornell Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Connecticut primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Shredded Wheat Co. v. Humphrey Cornell Co., 244 F. 508, 1917 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1064 (D. Conn. 1917).

Opinion

THOMAS, District Judge.

This is a suit in equity, charging the defendants with unfair trading, and is now before the court on final hearing upon pleadings and proofs.

The gravamen of the bill is contained in the fourth and fifth paragraphs which reads as follows:

(4) “That from the beginning of the manufacture of whole wheat hiseuit by your orator’s predecessors and continuously to the present time your orator has manufactured for sale and consumption such biscuit in a particular and peculiar shape and form; that such biscuit was produced and baked so as to present a distinguishing eye appearance, at once recognized by the configuration of such biscuit, from any other form of food product ever before manufactured either from wheat or any cereal of similar or allied purpose; that the whole wheat biscuits-of your orator were Composed and built up of wheat fashioned in peculiar form, laminated in structure and appearance, and to which your orator has attached the fanciful name of ‘shreds’ — the biscuit as completed in final form being a rectangular flattened oval, with rounded sides or edges and sharply severed ends being a biscuit browned in appearance as to its upper face and rendered crisp and palatable as to its separate parts in baking.”
(5) “That during nearly a quarter of a century that your orator has formed and baked its whole wheat biscuit product in the form and conditions above recited and identified, said biscuits have become known for a long period of years past to the using'and purchasing public by reason alone of the particular form, shape and structure of the individual biscuit itself as above described; your orator averring that for many years past such whole wheat biscuit of your orator has come to have and now has a secondary significance and meaning to the purchasing public by reason of the facts above set forth, and to thus mean and signify only the product and biscuit output of your orator, your orator averring that, when your orator’s said biscuit product is separated from your, orator’s carton and advertising matter, and standing alone without other means of identification, your orator’s said biscuit has come to have the meaning and significance of the product and output only of your orator’s plant.”

The defenses pleaded at length may be summarized as follows:

(1) “That the form, size, color, and appearance of the biscuits (plaintiff's and defendants’) involved in this controversy result from, and are essential to, the economic manufacture of a commercial biscuit from shredded whole wheat. * * * ”
(2) “That the defendants’ biscuit is composed of shredded whole wheat, the physical characteristics of which are such that the biscuit cannot be directly branded or stamped with the name or trade-mark of the maker.”
(3) “That to inclose the individual biscuits of the defendants in an envelope or wrapper would be commercially prohibitive, by reason of the increased cost of that procedure.”
(4) “That the defendants’ biscuit is not labeled or dressed in simulation of plaintiff’s product; but, on the contrary, the dress of the defendants’ product is most decidedly individual and distinctive.”
[511]*511Í5) “That the defendants’ biscuit is a patent-expired product.”
((>) “That the size, form, shape, color, and appearance of plaintiff’s biscuit were not adopted or selected for the purpose of pointing to the origin or ownership of the article, but are the natural characteristics of a shredded wheat biscuit, made in full accordance with the patent-exiüred machines.”

So that the issue to be here determined is this: Are the defendants guilty, in view of the facts in the case, of unfair competition in trade in selling a biscuit of substantially the same size, form, color, and appearance as that of the plaintiff?

The bill of complaint, as it was originally filed, named five defendants — the Ross Food Company, a New York corporation, Andrew Ross, Ralph Valentine, the Humphrey Cornell Company, a Connecticut corporation, and Frederick H. Towne. Of these defendants, the first three have been dropped on motions challenging the jurisdiction of the court, and tire action has been continued and is now pending against the defendants the Humphrey Cornell Company and Frederick H. Towne, as to both of whom the court has retained jurisdiction. Although the defendants named in the bill as originally filed, other than the Humphrey Cornell Company and Towne, are not parties to this action, they must, by reason of their subsequent participation in the trial with the knowledge of the court and of all the parties to the record, as was the case here, be held to be privies to any judgment which may be recovered herein, and will be fully bound thereby. Souffront v. Compagnie Des Sucreries, 217 U. S. 475, 486, 30 Sup. Ct. 608, 54 L. Ed. 846; Washington Gas Co. v. District of Columbia, 161 U. S. 316, 16 Sup. Ct. 564, 40 L. Ed. 712.

The-facts as developed by the evidence are as follows:

The plaintiff is the successor in business of the Cereal Machine Company, a Colorado corporation organized in 1893 by Henry D. Perky, the founder of the business. The shredded wheat product, so called, of the plaintiff, is now, as it always has been, made from whole wheat of the highest grade and quality, and with great skill, iti the plaintiff’s plant in Niagara Falls, N. Y., the sanitary and mechanical methods of which, in all of their appointments, are of superlative excellence. The product retains the body and substance of the whole wheat in final biscuit form, and is at once recognized by the configuration of the biscuit from all other forms of food products ever before manufactured from wheat or any cereal of similar or allied character.

The whole wheat berry is thoroughly cooked by boiling without destroying the berry form, and then all parts of the individual berry are-swaged and commingled together by passing through grooved rollers, from which they are discharged in the form of long, fine filaments or threads of porous character having a rough exterior, so that they are adapted to and do adhere together when being massed to form loaves or biscuits, and the food as discharged from the rolls is ready for use without further cooking, or it can be shaped for baking in various ways. After it is discharged from the rolls it is baked a golden brown, 12 biscuits are packed in a carton, 36 cartons in each case, and the product is shipped to the wholesale grocer, who in turn sells it to the retail grocer, and he to the ultimate consumer.

[512]*512The plaintiff’s product was protected by two patents — one for bread and the method of preparing the same, No. 548,086, dated October 15, 1895, and which accordingly expired October 15, 1912; and the other a design patent, No. 24,688, dated December 17, 1895, for 14 years, and which accordingly expired December 17, 1909. Since the expiration of these patents, with the exception of the defendants and those in privity with them, the plaintiff has been the only person using this particular form, shape, color, and size of shredded wheat biscuit, all of which features have been appropriated by the plaintiff.

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Bluebook (online)
244 F. 508, 1917 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1064, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/shredded-wheat-co-v-humphrey-cornell-co-ctd-1917.