154 N.Y.S. 391 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1915
The plaintiff, the Oneida Oommunity, Limited, and its predecessors, has manufactured game traps for a period of sixty years, and it appears from the evidence that it now produces and sells about ninety-two per cent of all the game traps used in the world, and about eighty per cent of the traps used in the United States. It has factories located at a settlement known as Sherrill, adjoining the corporate limits of the city of Oneida, and at Niagara Falls, Ontario, and having a commanding position in the industry of manufacturing game traps, it must be obvious that it has a good will which would. be of great value, and which would naturally he desired by a competitor attempting to establish a like business. The evidence in the case clearly establishes the existence of this good will; it shows conclusively that the Oneida Oommunity, Limited, game traps have an established reputation; that they are well known to the trade and to the users of traps, and that all competitors have found it difficult to replace the plaintiff in the estimate of those engaged in trapping either professionally or as an incident to the life of farmer boys. Having this established business, with its immensely valuable good will, which facts are important to be kept in mind in dealing with the evidence in this case, the plaintiff has brought this action to restrain the defendant from an infringement of its registered trade mark, as well as from an unfair competition, and for damages. It has succeeded in part, in- that the court has given judgment in its favor; hut this the plaintiff deems inadequate, and has appealed from the judgment, while the defend
It is conceded on the part of the defendant that the plaintiff had heretofore registered the word “ Oneida” as a part of its trade mark “ Oneida Community,” under the ten-year clause of the act of Congress of February 20, 1905, and that this trade mark was used by the plaintiff in interstate and foreign commerce and in trade with the Indian tribes, but it is urged that the court was without jurisdiction to construe or enforce this Federal statute, and, as this must have a very important bearing upon the proper disposition of this litigation, it is important that this jurisdictional question be disposed of now. The argument of the defendant is that the question of the effect of the ten-year clause upon the plaintiff’s rights was not a common-law question; that it depended entirely upon the Federal statute and gave an entirely new cause of action in addition to all causes of action of which the State courts then had jurisdiction; that this new and additional cause of action being created by, and entirely dependent upon, a Federal statute, must be construed and enforced by the Federal courts unless some new and additional authority was directly given to the State courts, and this has not been done. Dudley v. Mayhem (3 N. Y. 1); Continental Store Service Co. v. Clark (100 id. 370), and various other cases are cited as authority for this proposition, but we are of the opinion that the principles enunciated in those cases do not support the defendant’s contention. The case of Dudley v. Mayhem (supra) involved a patent right, and it was held that the courts of this State have no jurisdiction to entertain a suit instituted to restrain the infringement of a patent right, which is undoubtedly the law. (Robb v. Connolly, 111 U. S. 624, 636.) But the court in that same case pointed out that while it was true that where a statute confers a right and prescribes adequate means of protecting it, the proprietor of the right is confined to the statutory remedy; where the statute creating the right omits to provide against its infringement the remedy may be pursued at large by any appropriate action or proceeding. This is the principle involved in the case now under consideration, and as the statute has not provided an exclusive remedy, we are of the opinion that it
“Underlying the entire argument in behalf of the plaintiff in error,”-say the court in Robb v. Connolly (111 U. S. 624, 635) “is the idea that the judicial tribunals of the States are excluded altogether from the consideration and determination of questions involving an authority, or a right, privilege or immunity, derived from the Constitution and laws of the United States. But this view is not sustained by the statutes defining and regulating the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States. In establishing those courts, Congress has taken care not to exclude the jurisdiction of the State courts from every case to which, by the Constitution, the judicial power of the United States extends. In the Judiciary Act of 1789
This, in the absence of some provision of the statute specially
“We come next to consider whether rights arising under the congressional act may be enforced, as of right, in the courts of the States when their jurisdiction, as prescribed by local laws, is adequate to the occasion. The first of the cases now before us was begun in one of the Superior Courts of the State of Connecticut, and, in that case, the Supreme Court of Errors of the State answered the question in the negative. That, however, was not because the ordinary jurisdiction of the Superior Courts, as defined by the Constitution and laws of the State, was deemed inadequate or not adapted to the adjudication of such a case, but because the Supreme Court of Errors was of opinion (1) that the congressional act impliedly restricts the
“We are quite unable to assent to the view that the enforcement of the rights which the congressional act creates was originally intended to be restricted to the Federal courts. The act contains nothing which is suggestive of such a restriction, ■and in this situation the intention of Congress was reflected by the provision in the general jurisdictional act, ‘ That the Circuit Courts of the United States shall have original cognizance, concurrent with the courts of the several States, of all suits of a civil nature, at common law or in equity, where the matter in dispute exceeds, exclusive of interest and costs, the sum or value of two thousand dollars, ancl arising under the Constitution or laws of the United States. (August 13, 1888, 25 Stat. 433, c. 866, § 1.
“ The suggestion that the act of Congress is not in harmony
The learned court at Special Term, following the case of Kayser & Co. v. Italian Silk Underwear Co. (160 App. Div. 607), reached the conclusion that the action was maintainable in the courts of this State, in harmony with the authorities above cited, but in sustaining the plaintiff’s action in this regard, gave an affirmative judgment to the defendant, a wrongdoer, permitting it to make use of the word “ Oneida,” as an address upon the pan of the trap, while excluding the corporate name of the defendant from the pan as an invasion of the plaintiff’s registered trade mark. This seems to us like a fanciful use of the jurisdiction of the court, and one calculated to perpetuate the fraudulent purpose of the defendant rather than serve the well-being of the plaintiff, which has taken all the steps to preserve its right in its good will. The plaintiff has marketed its traps at a large expense for many years, the advertising has been of the “ Oneida Community Game Traps,” and with various subordinate uses of the word “Oneida” in connection with the several sizes and peculiar makes, and each one of .the traps has borne upon the pan, in a circular form, the words “Victor Oneida Community, N. V.,” or “ S. Newhouse, Oneida Community, N. Y.,” or with the “ N. Y.” left off, with variations for thé other brands. The registered trade mark is of the words “Oneida Community,” and the record in connection with the registration shows that “the trade-mark is usually displayed by stamping the same upon the trap itself,” but under the judgment the plaintiff gets no practical benefit of its registered trade mark, for the defendant, with no such claim in its answer, is given an affirmative decree permitting it to stamp upon the pan of its traps “ Game Traps, Triumph
The defendant here does not claim.to.be entitled to the judgment rendered; it appeals from so much of the judgment as gives the plaintiff any relief whatever, and in its answer claims to be entitled to a .judgment dismissing the complaint. Its contention is that it has a right not to the judgment rendered but to a judgment permitting it to continue to use the name “Oneida Game Trap Company ” and to have this name and the address “ Oneida, N. Y.,” stamped upon the pan of its traps; it insists that it has not violated any of the rights of the plaintiff under its registered trade mark. It specifically asks to have the judgment reversed in so far as it declares “that the name ‘ Oneida Game Trap Co., Inc.’ is a colorable imitation of plaintiff’s trade mark ‘Oneida Community, Limited,’ but only so by reason of its stamping on the pan. The phrase or wording in its setting, upon the round pan, taken together, effects the violation. Defendant cannot use it in that connection.” It likewise asks to have the judgment reversed in so far as the judgment provides that defendant and its agents, servants and employees are and each of them is hereby enjoined and restrained from the use of its corporate name as
That is, the defendant, which has been guilty of a colorable imitation of plaintiff’s trade mark; which has sought by artifice to defraud the plaintiff of its rights under its registration; is told that it cannot do the thing which it has wrongfully done, but that it may do something else; it may make conspicuous the fact that it is manufactured at Oneida, this word having been identified for sixty years with the principal manufacture of game traps in the world, placing this announcement where the plaintiff has for years made its announcement that the traps were the product of the Oneida Community — upon the pan of the trap— and then that it might place its corporate name upon any other part of the trap. This does not appear to us to be the proper disposition of this case.f Leaving entirely out of the question the many and important facts which point strongly to unfair competition, we are of the opinion that the use of the corporate name “ Oneida Game Trap Co.,” in connection with the production of traps to enter into competition with the Oneida Community, Limited, traps, is a colorable imitation of plaintiff’s trade mark; that it was clearly designed to work the same mischief which was involved in the case of Kayser & Co. v. Italian Silk Underwear Co. (supra), and that in enacting the Trade-Mark Act of 1905 and inserting the provisos in section 5 thereof, Congress did not intend to provide for a barren notice of an ineffectual claim, but to confer definite rights, and an applicant properly registering under the act becomes the owner of the trade mark and entitled to be protected in its use as such. (Thaddeus Davids Co. v. Davids, 233 U. S. 461.) Tn a case of unfair competition it may be necessary to show intent to deceive the public, but in a case for violation of a properly registered trade mark it is not necessary to show wrongful intent or facts justifying an inference of such intent. (Thaddeus Davids Co. v. Davids, supra.) It is sufficient that the rights intended to have been secured by the registration
Let the findings of fact and conclusions of law be amended in harmony with this opinion, such findings and conclusions to be submitted to one of the justices of this court for approval.
Costs are awarded to the plaintiff.
All concurred.
Judgment modified in accordance with opinion, and as modified affirmed, with costs to plaintiff. Order to be settled before Woodward, J., on notice.
1 U. S. Stat. at Large, 78, § 11.— [Rep.
18 U. S. Stat. at Large, 318, chap. 80. See Judicial Code (36 U. S. Stat. at Large, 1160), § 256.— [Rep.
See 18 U. S. Stat. at Large, 470, chap. 137, §§ 1, 2 et seq. See Judicial Code (36 U. S. Stat. at Large, 1091, 1094), §§ 24, 28 et seq.; Id. § 28, as amd, by 38 id. 278, chap. 11.— [Rep.
[ See U. S. Const, art. 6, snbds. 2, 3.— [Rep.
See Judicial Code (36 U. S. Stat. at Large, 1092), § 24, subd. 7.— [Rep.
See 24 TJ. S. Stat. at Large, 552, chap. 373, § 1, as amd. by 25 id. 433, 434, chap. 866, § 1. See Judicial Code (36 U. S. Stat. at Large, 1091), § 24. — [Rep.
(•See 35 U. S. Stat. at Large, 66, § 6, as amd. by 86 id. 291, § 1.— [Rep.