Sun-Maid Raisin Growers of California v. Sunaid Food Products, Inc.

254 F. Supp. 649, 149 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 252, 1964 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9032
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. Florida
DecidedJuly 30, 1964
DocketNo. 63-567-Civ-EC
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 254 F. Supp. 649 (Sun-Maid Raisin Growers of California v. Sunaid Food Products, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Sun-Maid Raisin Growers of California v. Sunaid Food Products, Inc., 254 F. Supp. 649, 149 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 252, 1964 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9032 (S.D. Fla. 1964).

Opinion

OPINION

McRAE, District Judge.

This is a civil action arising under the trademark laws of the United States for infringement of a trademark registered in the United States Patent Office, Plaintiff claims that Defendant has violated the provisions of 15 U.S.C. §§ 1051-1127■ The specific section of the Code which is before the Court for application is Section 1114. Jurisdiction is conferred °n this Court by 28 U.S.C. § 1338.

The Complaint further alleges facts to support jurisdiction upon the ground that there is diversity of citizenship, with the requisite jurisdictional amount. The Court treats these allegations as surplus-age.

The parties filed an extensive Pre-Trial Stipulation, to which reference is made, Although this Stipulation will not be repeated in the present opinion, use will be made of certain facts to be found in such Stipulation.

Plaintiff is a corporation organized and existing under the laws of the State of California, with its principal place of business in Fresno, California. It is an agricultural cooperative comprised of numerous raisin growers in that area of California. Since as early as 1915, and continuously up to the present time, Plaintiff and its predecessors have been engaged in the^ business of packing and marketing raisins. Its raisins are sold extensively throughout the United States and foreign countries,

Defendant is a corporation organized under the laws of the State of Florida, with its principal place of business in Miami, Florida. Defendant was organized in 1948, and has continuously used the name “Sunaid” as a brand name [650]*650for an extensive variety of jellies, jams, fruit juices and fruit products. Defendant has never produced or sold raisins. The only instance in which Defendant sells any raisins or raisin products is in the sale of its conserves. In the production of these conserves, Defendant uses fifteen pounds of raisins to each batch of five hundred pounds of conserves.

In the course of the trial, it was vigorously urged by Plaintiff that the trade name “Sun-Maid” was used on a variety of food and drink products other than raisins. On cross-examination by Defendant of Plaintiff’s witness, Lee W. Halverstadt, Secretary-Treasurer of Plaintiff, it was established, however, that the sales of all products other than raisins were made solely for the purpose of carrying out a “trademark maintenance program”. In other words, Plaintiff follows an established program whereby it records small annual or semiannual interstate shipments of several raisin products, such as raisin juice, raisin seed salad oil, mincemeat, raisin pie filling, raisin soda and raisin jam, for the sole purpose of protecting the “Sun-Maid” trademark on these products. The question of Plaintiff’s exclusive right to produce and distribute these products is not an issue in this case. Defendant does not market any of these products. It is Plaintiff’s contention that the shipment of these products shows direct competition in the market of jams and food drinks produced by Defendant. This contention is unfounded. The evidence clearly shows that Plaintiff’s “trademark maintenance program” simply involved the shipment of only six to twelve bottles of each of these products to a friendly customer on either an annual or semiannual basis. No one of these products was in fact produced by Sun-Maid; all of them were produced for Sun-Maid by unidentified manufacturers. These products were labeled with plain black on white labels as contrasted with the multicolored label on Plaintiff’s commercial products. The witness Halverstadt was unable to state whether or not Sun-Maid received payment for any of these shipments. This clearly does not constitute competition in any sense of the word.

On cross-examination Carlis H. Neaf us, General Sales and Advertising Manager of Sun-Maid for the past fourteen years, testified that, disregarding these nominal shipments, the only product sold by Sun-Maid since 1948 is raisins. The raisins produced by Plaintiff are packaged either in cardboard containers or cellophane sacks. The products produced, distributed and sold by Defendant are packaged in cans or jars. Clearly, a housewife would not mistakenly purchase Defendant’s “Sunaid” products in lieu of Plaintiff’s “Sun-Maid” raisins.

The Court therefore turns to the question of whether the Defendant’s use of the trade name “Sunaid” on its jams and fruit drinks was an infringement of Plaintiff's trademark “Sun-Maid” as used in the sale of raisins.

A prominent part of Plaintiff’s trademark shows an attractive, smiling girl holding a large tray of grapes, with a sunburst in the background. Below the picture of the girl is the name “SUN-MAID” and at the bottom of the package appears the word “RAISINS”. Between the phrase “SUN-MAID” and the word “RAISINS” appears the variety of raisins which is contained in the package, including “Seedless”, “Golden Seedless”, “Puffed Seeded Muscats”, and “Seedless Nectars”. Plaintiff produces likewise “Zante CURRANTS”. The Court takes judicial notice of the fact that a “currant” is simply a small seedless raisin.

The lettering used by Plaintiff on its packages, with almost unbroken regularity, is of a distinctive block style. Only one exhibit was introduced in evidence of a script style and this lettering was used on an address label. On the other hand, for a good many years Defendant has uniformly used a script type label with a sweeping “S”, which bears no similarity in appearance to the label used by Plaintiff. Furthermore, the picture displayed on “Sun-Maid” raisins is uniformly the picture of the girl as above described. The picture displayed on the “Sunaid” products is almost uniformly [651]*651the picture of the product in the container; for example, the label on a bottle of grape juice would show a glass of grape juice. Defendant has never used the picture of a woman or girl in connection with its packaging. The Court concludes that the appearance of the labels used by Plaintiff and Defendant are so widely different that there would be no likelihood of confusion or mistake.

Although the names “Sun-Maid” and “Sunaid” are similar in sound, they are derivatively different. It was testified by the President of Sunaid Food Products that the name “Sunaid” was chosen because Florida is known as the land of sunshine and Defendant’s original products were made from Florida fruit. It seemed reasonable, therefore, to suggest in the trade name that the food products produced in Florida were aided by the sun. On the other hand, the name “Sun-Maid” has a different literal meaning ana is directly associated with the attractive maid who appears on the package.

There is no evidence in the record to show intent on the part of the Defendant to deceive or confuse anyone as to the origin of its food and drink products. Surely it cannot be said that Defendant’s trademark was an imitative device, artifice, or a contrivance which was devised to induce a buyer to purchase Defendant’s products in the belief that the product was produced by Plaintiff.

No proof was offered by Plaintiff of consumer confusion. One witness testified that an unidentified Boy Scout at the recent Boy Scout Jamboree in Philadelphia had consumed a small individual container of “Sunaid” jelly and had told the witness that he thought the jelly was made by Sun-Maid. The Court can attach no weight to such frivolous testimony.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
254 F. Supp. 649, 149 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 252, 1964 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9032, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sun-maid-raisin-growers-of-california-v-sunaid-food-products-inc-flsd-1964.