Prest-O-Lite Co. v. Davis
| Decision Date | 25 July 1914 |
| Docket Number | 2583,2584. |
| Parties | PREST-O-LITE CO. v. DAVIS et al. DAVIS et al. v. PRESTO-O-LITE CO. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
Wallace R. Lane, of Chicago, Ill., for Davis et al.
Before KNAPPEN, Circuit Judge, and COCHRAN and TUTTLE, District Judges.
The Prest-O-Lite Company, a manufacturer and distributor of acetylene gas for lighting automobiles and other vehicles brought suit to restrain alleged unfair competition and infringement of trade-mark by defendants, who are dealers in automobile accessories. Complainant stores its gas in portable steel cylinders lined with asbestos, which absorbs a quantity of acetone, which in turn is saturated with acetylene gas introduced under pressure, the outflow for consumption being valve-controlled. The entire package, so filled by complainant with its gas (the gas being trade-marked under the name 'Prest-O-Lite'), is furnished the consumer in the first instance. When the gas is consumed the tank is, under complainant's long-established system, accepted at any one of several thousand agencies or depots throughout the United States, in exchange for a package fully charged by complainant, and on payment of a small fraction of the original price of the filled package. Complainant's container is copper-plated and bears the words 'Presto-O-Lite gas tank,' together with its corporate name as manufacturer, etched in the metal surface of the cylinder. It also contains a notice licensing its sale and use only when filled with gas and acetone compressed by complainant. This restrictive feature was exploited by complainant, by its advertising matter and otherwise, at least during the life of the Claude & Hess patent (No. 664,383, December 25, 1900), under which the apparatus in question was manufactured. The patent was held by the Circuit Court of Appeals of the Seventh circuit to have expired June 30, 1910. Commercial Acetylene Co. v Searchlight Gas Co., 203 F. 276, 121 C.C.A. 474. [1] Complainant's trade-mark was registered June 30, 1906. The gist of the charge against defendants is that they are recharging empty Prest-O-Lite containers with Searchlight gas, the product of a competitor of complainant, and in effect selling Prest-O-Lite tanks charged with Searchlight gas. The final decree below enjoined defendants, in substance, from refilling Presto-O-Lite tanks with any material, and from dealing in such tanks refilled by others than complainant, without in all cases removing or obliterating complainant's trade-mark, and from passing off such refilled tanks as Prest-O-Lite gas tanks, exchanges or refills. Both parties have appealed
The grounds, broadly stated, on which defendants contend that complainant should be denied relief are: (a) That defendants have not been guilty of fraud or unfair trade; (b) that the attempt to limit the use to which complainant's gas tanks shall be put after their sale by complainant is void, whether rested upon trade-mark rights or the system of exchanging filled for empty tanks, under the rule announced in John D. Park & Sons Co. v Hartman, 153 F. 24, 40, 82 C.C.A. 158, 12 L.R.A. (N.S.) 135 (C.C.A. 6), and Miles Medical Co. v. John D. Park & Sons Co., 220 U.S. 373, 31 Sup.Ct. 376, 55 L.Ed. 502; and (c) that by the expiration of the patent the name, and trade-mark 'Prest-O-Lite' have been dedicated to the public, under the doctrine of Singer v. June, 163 U.S. 169, 16 Sup.Ct. 1002, 41 L.Ed. 118.
The published opinion of Judge Hollister, who heard the case below (Prest-O-Lite Co. v. Davis (D.C.) 209 F. 917) so well and so fully considers the first two contentions stated (no reference, however, being made to the doctrine of the Singer Case) as to make discussion by us of the propositions there treated quite unnecessary. We fully agree with his conclusions that defendants have been guilty of unfair trade and that the doctrine of the Parks Cases cited is not opposed to the granting of the relief given. The validity of the attempted license restriction agreements under the Sherman Act (Act July 2, 1890, c. 647, 26 Stat. 209 (U.S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 3200)) or at common law is not involved here. The decision of this court in Coca-Cola Co. v. Gay-Ola Co., 200 F. 720, 726, 19 C.C.A. 164, is directly in point. Relief may safely be rested upon defendant's interference with complainant's rights under its long-established system of exchanges, which, as...
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