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Forster Manufacturing Company vs. Cutter-Tower Company

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court1912-02-29
211 Mass. 219

Summary

Holding. The defendant's deliberate duplication of the plaintiff's distinctive package design to capture the plaintiff's trade constitutes actionable unfair competition, entitling the plaintiff to injunctive relief and damages including profits from the sale of goods in the imitation packages. The case is remanded for further hearing on the issues of actual damages and profits.

Forster Manufacturing Company developed a distinctive toothpick business featuring a uniquely designed box with characteristic colors, shapes, and decorative elements, including the company's monogram and a wreath design with an escalloped gold edge. Over five years, the company built valuable reputation and goodwill through this distinctive packaging, selling either under its own brand names or under jobber brands, though all packages bore the company's identifying marks regardless of which brand appeared on the box.

Cutter-Tower Company, seeking to capture business from one of Forster's jobber customers, deliberately copied Forster's package design in every detail except for removing Forster's monogram. Cutter-Tower then distributed these imitation packages filled with toothpicks through trade dealers to consumers. The court found this constituted unfair competition, as the packaging was designed to deceive or potentially deceive consumers about the product's origin, regardless of whether wholesale or retail purchasers were actually misled.

Summary generated by law.co from the public-domain opinion. The opinion text itself is public domain.

Key issues

  • Whether copying distinctive product packaging constitutes unfair competition
  • Whether actual deception of consumers must be proven or whether likelihood of deception suffices
  • Whether defendant's intent to deceive is required for liability
  • Scope of remedies available for package design infringement

Procedural posture

The case comes before the court following a master's findings of fact regarding the plaintiff's business history and the defendant's copying of the plaintiff's packaging design.

Authorities cited

No cited authorities resolved to law.co cases yet.

Opinion

majority opinion

Braley, J.

The plaintiff corporation, as found by the master, began the manufacture and sale of toothpicks five years and more before the bill was filed, and during this period has established a valuable business. It adopted in the marketing of the product a box or package of distinctive size and shape bearing in colors a characteristic design so collocated as to make the combination dissimilar from any label, form of package, or dress of goods then in use by other manufacturers or dealers. During the development of its trade a certain proportion of the packages had the imprint of the name of various jobbers to whom the exclusive sale of the goods had been given, or of some fanciful word or phrase suggested by them, and the entire production became classified as either the factory brand sold generally to the jobbing trade under brand names used only by the plaintiff, or the jobber’s brand. But while the color of the printing and of the background on the factory brand differed from the jobber’s brand, the quality of the goods was uniform, and every package as it left the factory bore the monogram of the plaintiff, with the further distinguishing design of a wreath overlapped by a curved band with an escalloped gold edge. The plaintiff upon these findings, while claiming no rights of property in the brand name used by the jobber, had acquired a reputation and good will in connection with, and as a part of its business, which generally is recognized as a property right, and will be protected against the unfair competition of rival manufacturers or dealers in similar products. George G. Fox Co. v. Glynn, 191 Mass. 344, 349. Reading Stove Works v. S. M. Howes Co. 201 Mass. 437, 438. Draper v. Skerrett, 116 Fed. Rep. 206.

It is wholly immaterial, where this right has been invaded, that the retail or wholesale dealer who may be the immediate purchaser of goods put out in imitation is not misled as to their identity. The wrong of unfair competition is present where goods are so dressed in form, or- marked by decorative symbols, that the ultimate consumer when the goods are distributed for use in the ordinary course of trade, either is, or possibly may be, de- > ceived. The liability to deception being the test, it also is not necessary to show that specific buyers have been actually de- ‘ ceived or that the infringer intended to deceive the public. He ■ is bound to know the probable consequences, where the means of such deception have been supplied by him. New England Awl & Needle Co. v. Marlborough Awl & Needle Co. 168 Mass. 154. Reading Stove Works v. S. M. Howes Co. 201 Mass. 437, 440, 441, and cases there cited.

The defendant, for the pin-pose of acquiring the extensive trade of a jobber with whom the plaintiff did business, deliberately duplicated the plaintiff’s box or package in every particular with the exception of the monogram, and thereafter these receptacles filled with toothpicks in which the defendant although not a manufacturer very largely dealt, were widely distributed to consumers through dealers in the trade to whom it sold them. This misappropriation having been an invasion of the plaintiff’s exclusive right to the form, style and dress of the box or package in which its goods had been marketed, it is entitled to injunctive relief even if the defendant had acted innocently. But as the defendant must be presumed to have contemplated the probable effect of its purpose to acquire so far as possible the plaintiff’s customers and trade, it is liable for both actual damages, and profits, if any, realized from the sale of toothpicks in the imitation packages. Regis v. Jaynes, 191 Mass. 245. Reading Stove Works v. S. M. Howes Co. 201 Mass. 437, 441-443. By the terms of the reservation of the single justice, the case is to stand for further hearing upon these questions.

Decree accordingly.