Ingenohl v. Walter Olsen Co, 174
| Decision Date | 14 March 1927 |
| Docket Number | No. 174,174 |
| Citation | 273 U.S. 541,47 S.Ct. 451,71 L.Ed. 762 |
| Parties | INGENOHL v. WALTER E. OLSEN & CO., Inc. |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. James M. Beck, of New York City, and Joseph C. Meyerstein, of San Francisco, Cal., for petitioner.
Messrs. Frederic R. Coudert, Jr., of New York City, Allison D. Gibbs, of Manila, Philippine Islands, and Mahlon B. Doing, of New York City, for respondent.
This is a suit to recover the costs adjudged to the plaintiff, the petitioner here, in a former suit that was brought by him against the defendant in the British Colony of Hongkong and was determined in his favor by the Su- preme Court there. The judgment declared the plaintiff to be the owner of certain trade-marks and trade-names and entitled to the exclusive use of them in connection with his business as a cigar manufacturer. It restrained the defendants from selling cigars under these trade-marks and awarded the costs now sued for. The Court of First Instance of Manila gave judgment for the plaintiff. On appeal the Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands reversed this decision on the ground that by section 311(2) of the Code of Civil Procedure a judgment against a person 'may be repelled by evidence of a want of jurisdiction, want of notice to the party, collusion, fraud or clear mistake of law or fact,' and that the judgment of the Supreme Court of Hongkong showed such a clear mistake.
The supposed mistake consisted in denying effect in Hongkong to a sale of business and trade-marks by the Alien Property Custodian to the defendant, the circumstances and nature of which may be stated in few words so far as they concern the present case. The plaintiff Ingenohl had built up a great business as a cigar manufacturer and exporter having his factory at Manila. In 1908 he established a factory at Hongkong and thereafter goods from both factories were sold under the same trade-marks, the outside box or package of the Hongkong goods having a label indicating that they came from there. The trade-marks were registered in Hongkong and the cigars covered by them had acquired a reputation. In 1918 the Alien Property Custodian seized and sold all the property 'wheresoever situate in the Philippine Islands * * * including the business as going concern, and the good will, trade-names and trade-marks thereof, of Syndicat Oriente,' being the above mentioned business of the plaintiff in the Philippines. The Supreme Court of the Philippines held that it was plain error in the Supreme Court of the British Colony to hold that this sale did not carry the exclusive right to use the trade-marks in the latter place.
A trade-mark started elsewhere would depend for its protection in...
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...in Private International Law 45 n. 3 (1956); cf. Note, 53 Am.J. Int'l Law 687 (1959). And in Ingenohl v. Walter E. Olsen & Co., 273 U.S. 541, 47 S.Ct. 451, 71 L.Ed. 762 (1937), Justice Holmes, speaking for a unanimous Supreme Court, gave effect to a judgment of a British court which refused......
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United States v. Pink
...of the power of a forum over property within its territorial jurisdiction that this Court, in Ingenohl v. Walter E. Olsen & Co., 273 U.S. 541, 544, 545, 47 S.Ct. 451, 452, 71 L.Ed. 762, accepted as beyond all doubt the right of the British courts in Hong Kong to refuse recognition to the Am......
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