Emilie Saxlehner v. Alexander Nielsen
| Decision Date | 15 October 1900 |
| Docket Number | No. 33,33 |
| Citation | 21 S.Ct. 16,45 L.Ed. 77,179 U.S. 43 |
| Parties | EMILIE SAXLEHNER v. ALEXANDER NIELSEN |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
This was a bill of similar character to those involved in the prior cases, and was brought to enjoin the defendant from selling water under the name of 'Hunyadi Lajos,' or any other name in which the word 'Hunyadi' occurs, as well as selling such water in bottles or under capsules or labels resembling those of the plaintiff upon her bottles of 'Hunyadi Janos' water. The answer pleaded abandonment and laches. The circuit court made a similar decree to that in the Eisner & Mendelson suit, enjoining the infringement of plaintiff's red and blue label, requiring an accounting for damages, and denying relief against the use of the name 'Hunyadi.' The circuit court of appeals reversed this decree, and ordered the bill to be dismissed.
Messrs. Antonio Knauth, John G. Johnson, Joseph H. Choate, and Arthur Briesen for petitioner.
Mr. Louis C. Raegener submitted the case for respondent.
The evidence in this case is much less complete than that in the cases just decided, although its general tendency is much the same. Plaintiff proves the adoption of the name 'Hunyadi' by certificate of the municipal council of Buda, dated January 19, 1863, authorizing Saxlehner to give his spring the name of 'Hunyadi Spring,' and by other certificates of a similar character.
It was shown that Andreas Saxlehner had used uninterruptedly the trademark 'Hunyadi Janos' ever since 1865; that in 1873 he had registered this trademark in Hungary, and that plaintiff had re-registered the same in 1890. It was admitted that, if the plaintiff had not been guilty of laches, acquiescence, or abandonment, she would undoubtedly be entitled to the exclusive enjoyment of both name and label.
But the contract with the Apollinaris Company was also put in evidence, together with testimony showing that from 1886, when the Hunyadi Arpad water began to be imported, some fourteen different Hunyadi waters were put upon the American market without opposition on the part of Saxlehner or the Apollinaris Company, and that the name 'Hunyadi' had become widely known in this country as applicable to Hungarian bitter waters. Of some of these waters the importations were as high as six or seven thousand cases a year. As stated in the former opinion, the use of the name 'Hunyadi' had become generic in...
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