Saxlehner v. Eisner & Mendelson Co.
| Decision Date | 05 January 1899 |
| Docket Number | 86-89. |
| Citation | 91 F. 536 |
| Parties | SAXLEHNER v. EISNER & MENDELSON CO. SAME v. SIEGEL-COOPER CO. SAME v. GIES. SAME v. MARQUET. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
Antonio Knauth and Joseph H. Choate, for complainant.
Edmund Wetmore, for defendants.
Appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.
These were four suits in equity, brought by Emilie Saxlehner against the Eisner & Mendelson Company, the Siegel-Cooper Company, Rudolph Gies, and Louis Marquet, to enjoin an improper use of trade marks and labels in connection with certain Hungarian mineral waters. From the decree of the circuit court in each case (88 F. 61), complainant appeals and in the first-named case defendant also appeals.
Of these four suits, the first is one against a wholesale dealer in imported Hungarian mineral waters, which it offers for sale as 'Hunyadi Matyas,' and as 'Hunyadi Laszlo,' and puts up with wrappings and labels simulating complainant's. The other three suits are against retail dealers. The complainant sought to enjoin the use of the name 'Hunyadi,' with or without prefix, and also to enjoin the use of any label simulating the well-known red and blue label of 'Hunyadi Janos' water, which water complainant owns and controls. The circuit court, at final hearing, upon pleadings and proofs, dismissed the bills as to the name 'Hunyadi.' It sustained them as to the label, except that it held that the use by defendants of a certain additional label, known as the 'seal label,' sufficiently differentiated the goods offered for sale. The complainant has appealed in all four cases, and the defendant in the first case has appealed from so much of the decree as finds that the complainant is entitled to the exclusive use of the red and blue label, and that defendant should account for sales under that label prior to the introduction of the 'seal label.'
Before WALLACE and LACOMBE, Circuit Judges.
LACOMBE Circuit Judge (after stating the facts).
The opinion of the judge who heard the cause in the circuit court is most careful and exhaustive. The voluminous facts are most fully rehearsed, and an examination of the record shows that they are accurately stated. Indeed, we do not understand that the appellant controverts so much of the opinion. It would be a waste of time to rehearse all these facts here. The opinion of the circuit court is reported in 88 F. 61, and may be there consulted. We concur in the conclusion of that court that when these suits were begun, in 1897, complainant was not entitled to the exclusive use in this country of the word 'Hunyadi,' which had before that time become a general name properly applicable to Hungarian bitter waters so long as they were differentiated from each other by distinctive individual names, such as 'Hunyadi Janos,' 'Hunyadi Matyas,' 'Hunyadi Arpad,' etc. This conclusion is reached, not upon any theory that the Apollinaris Company was the agent of complainant and her predecessors, but because the latter's acts and inaction alike make out a case of abandonment. In 1876 the original Saxlehner made a contract with the Apollinaris Company whereby he gave to them the exclusive sale of his Hunyadi Janos bitter water in the United States; that is, he sold to them all they required and agreed to sell to no one else in the United States, and not to sell for export there. Thereupon he devised the red and blue label for use on his bottles sold in the United States, placing upon it a notice signed by himself that 'imitation of this water, or of the label, or of the capsule, will be the subject of legal proceedings at the instance of the Apollinaris Company. ' Down to 1886 all went well, and at that time the name 'Hunyadi' (he short form used in common speech) was in fact the established trade mark of the Janos water, and the red and blue label its distinctive trade dress. At that time a few cases of other bitter water-- 'Matyas' and 'Arpad'-- appeared, and were offered for sale as 'Hunyadi Arpad' and 'Hunyadi Matyas,' whereupon the Apollinaris Company secured injunctions against their sale. These injunctions, however, were dissolved, and the suits discontinued in 1888. From that time on, competition steadily increased. As the circuit court found:
'After the dissolution of these injunctions, the Hunyadi Arpad and the Hunyadi Laszlo waters were sold in this...
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Saxlehner v. Eisner & Mendelson Co.
...end of a long litigation between these parties. The preceding decisions will be found reported as follows: (C.C.) 88 F. 61; 63 U.S.App. 139, 91 F. 536, 33 C.C.A. 291; 179 19, 21 Sup.Ct. 7, 45 L.Ed. 60; Id., 179 U.S. 43, 21 Sup.Ct. 16, 45 L.Ed. 77. Charles G. Coe, for appellant. Antonio Knau......
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Hansen v. Siegel-Cooper Co.
...What can be done in the way of differentiation was well illustrated before the court of appeals in this circuit in Saxlehner v. Eisner & Mendelson Co., 91 F. 536, the original Hunyadi Janos bottles and labels were displayed in connection with the bottles and labels of similar water which th......
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Saxlehner v. Neilsen
...WALLACE and LACOMBE, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM. The questions raised in this cause are substantially the same as in Saxlehner v. Eisner (decided herewith) 91 F. 536. circuit court held that complainant had no exclusive right in this country to the name 'Hunyadi,' in which conclusion we con......