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Full-Text Articles in Law

Trademarks-Unfair Competition-Scope Of Federal Jurisdiction Under Section 43(A) Of The Lanham Act, Harry T. Edwards Apr 1964

Trademarks-Unfair Competition-Scope Of Federal Jurisdiction Under Section 43(A) Of The Lanham Act, Harry T. Edwards

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff, a manufacturer and distributor of engine bearings and connecting rods for internal combustion engines, brought suit in a federal district court to enjoin the defendant from marketing and distributing the latter's products in containers which closely resembled those of the plaintiff, thereby falsely representing that the goods were produced by and originated with the plaintiff. The cause of action was based solely on section 43(a) of the Lanham Act. In dismissing the complaint, the district court ruled that any attempt to characterize the complaint as charging a "false description or representation" was without merit, and that "false designation of …


Unfair Competition-Motor Carrier Act - Private Remedy For Operation In Excess Of Certificate Of Necessity And Convenience, Daniel E. Lewis Jr. Apr 1960

Unfair Competition-Motor Carrier Act - Private Remedy For Operation In Excess Of Certificate Of Necessity And Convenience, Daniel E. Lewis Jr.

Michigan Law Review

In response to plaintiff trucking company's complaint under section 15 of the Clayton Act alleging violation of sections I and 2 of the Sherman Act, defendant railroads entered a counterclaim for damages resulting from interference with the railroad's franchise rights by the plaintiff's operations in excess of its Interstate Commerce Commission certificate of convenience and necessity. On plaintiff's motion for judgment on the pleadings to dismiss the counterclaim for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted, held, motion granted. Congress did not contemplate that the common law action of a franchise holder would lie when …


Unfair Competition - False Advertising - Scope Of Federal Jurisdiction Under Section 43(A) Of Lanham Act, John D. Kelly S.Ed. Dec 1958

Unfair Competition - False Advertising - Scope Of Federal Jurisdiction Under Section 43(A) Of Lanham Act, John D. Kelly S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff brought suit in a state court seeking injunctive relief, alleging unfair competition by defendant in manufacturing and selling slavish copies of plaintiff's swimsuits. One of the six causes of action alleged in the complaint was based on a violation of section 43 (a) of the Lanham Act. Defendant had the suit removed to federal district court. On motion to remand, held, denied. The alleged violation of section 43 (a) created a federal right of action within the original jurisdiction of the federal courts. Catalina, Inc. v. Gem Swimwear, Inc., (S.D. N.Y. 1958) 162 F. Supp. 911.


Trademarks - Extraterritorial Application Of The Lanham Act, William R. Luney S.Ed. Apr 1957

Trademarks - Extraterritorial Application Of The Lanham Act, William R. Luney S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff, an American corporation, had manufactured and sold women's undergarments in the United States and Canada since 1917, under a U.S. registered trademark, "Vanity Fair." Defendant, a Canadian corporation, had registered the same trademark in Canada in 1915, and for this reason plaintiff's application for a Canadian trademark was denied in 1919. From 1945 to 1953, defendant purchased plaintiff's trademarked goods for resale in Canada. In 1953, defendant began selling goods of Canadian manufacture with its own Vanity Fair trademark, and threatened its competitors in Canada with infringement suits if they continued to sell plaintiff's trademarked goods. In an action …


Woe Unto You Trade-Mark Owners, Julius R. Lunsford, Jr. Jun 1951

Woe Unto You Trade-Mark Owners, Julius R. Lunsford, Jr.

Michigan Law Review

THE new Trade-Mark Act,1 widely heralded as giving added protection to trade-mark owners, has in its nearly four years of operation resulted, in several spectacular instances, in narrowing the rights conferred by the registration and use of trade-marks. Text author Rudolph Callmann remarked after the act's first birthday: "Despite all the efforts of the bar, our courts still cling to the familiar anachronisms."2 Where do trade-mark owners stand today? The Supreme Court has to date failed to answer this question, and the federal courts have refused to consider the import of the new legislation. Many commentators, attorneys and scholars thought …


Labor Law-Some Developments During The Past Five Years-(A Service For Returning Veterans), Russell A. Smith Jun 1946

Labor Law-Some Developments During The Past Five Years-(A Service For Returning Veterans), Russell A. Smith

Michigan Law Review

It will be helpful in appraising labor relations problems of today to recall that unionism in this country has trodden a rough and thorny path over the past century. Unions were not welcomed by employers, worker inertia itself was a considerable obstacle, and by and large the general public was dubious as to the value of unionism. Facing these difficulties unions from the- beginning felt compelled to resort to self-help--the strike, the picket line, the boycott, etc.--to achieve their aims. In so doing they encountered vigorous and successful opposition in the courts, as injured economic interests, and even the government, …


Abstracts, Katharine Loomis Apr 1945

Abstracts, Katharine Loomis

Michigan Law Review

The abstracts consist merely of summaries of the facts and holdings of recent cases and are distinguished from the notes by the absence of discussion.


Corporations-Where Name Of New Corporation Is The Existing Trade Name Of Another, Robert M. Barton S. Ed. Dec 1944

Corporations-Where Name Of New Corporation Is The Existing Trade Name Of Another, Robert M. Barton S. Ed.

Michigan Law Review

In 1928 plaintiff changed its official corporate name from the "City Fuel Company" to the "Staples Coal Company," but continued to utilize the old corporate name as a trade name in advertising and the retail sale of fuel oil. It made little, if any, use of the new title, since the general public was accustomed to dealing with it under the name it had used for seventeen years. Defendant was incorporated in 1943 as the "City Fuel Company" and began to engage in a similar business in the same general trade area of greater Boston. Plaintiff, fearing deception of the …


Equity - Clean Hands Doctrine - Tradename Infringement - Relief Awarded On Condition That Complainant Cleanse His Hands, Craig E. Davids Oct 1944

Equity - Clean Hands Doctrine - Tradename Infringement - Relief Awarded On Condition That Complainant Cleanse His Hands, Craig E. Davids

Michigan Law Review

For twenty-six years complainant conducted a tailor shop under the name, "Dundee Woolen Mills, Custom Tailors." On the front of the store was the slogan "No Middle Man's Profit," though the shop was neither owned by a woolen mill nor conducted in any manner that eliminated the usual middle man's profit. Defendant for many years operated a nation-wide chain of ready-to-wear stores under the name "Dundee Clothes" and eventually opened an establishment in complainant's locality. Suit was filed in equity to enjoin the defendant from using "Dundee" in his business. The lower court decided that though complainant had come into …


Trade Restraints - Due Process - Interference With Liberty To Fix Sale Price Of Gasoline, Michigan Law Review Jun 1940

Trade Restraints - Due Process - Interference With Liberty To Fix Sale Price Of Gasoline, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

In 1925 the state of Iowa enacted a statute requiring all distributors of gasoline in the state, wholesale or retail, to post in plain sight the price at which they intended to sell their gasoline, setting out all taxes thereon. They were then bound to sell at this price to all buyers. Defendant was such a dealer, and although he posted the price, he failed to abide by it as to all sales and was charged with violating the statute. The lower court sustained defendant's demurrers, holding the statute unconstitutional as a denial of due process and equal protection of …


Trade Marks And Trade Names -- Injunction Against Non-Competitors, John C. Griffin Mar 1939

Trade Marks And Trade Names -- Injunction Against Non-Competitors, John C. Griffin

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff, Hugo Stein, began business in 1906 as Hugo Stein Cloak Company. Starting in the same year, defendant, S. B. Stein, continuously transacted a jewelry business variously as an individual, a partnership and finally, since 1931, as a corporation. Immediately prior to defendant's incorporation, plaintiff moved to within four doors of defendant. Plaintiff for thirty years consistently advertised as "Stein's," while defendant never did so, at least without additional description, until 1936, at which time it changed its store front and newspaper advertisements to correspond to plaintiff's. There was evidence that numerous people inquired at plaintiff's for jewelry. Held, …


Trade - Marks And Trade Names - Effect Of Word - Mark Acquiring A Descriptive Connotation, Grover C. Grismore Apr 1937

Trade - Marks And Trade Names - Effect Of Word - Mark Acquiring A Descriptive Connotation, Grover C. Grismore

Michigan Law Review

One of the principal stumbling blocks in the way of the development of a consistent and satisfactory theory of trade-mark protection has been the anomalous distinction that has always been made between the so-called technical or common-law trade-mark, and the non-technical mark or tradename. This distinction, as has been pointed out previously in this Review, grew somewhat accidentally out of the supposed limitations on the jurisdiction of equity. Some of the earliest trade-mark cases proceeded on the theory that to justify the intervention of a court of equity, when the defendant was not shown to have been guilty of …


Trade Marks And Trade Names - Mark Used On Patented Article - Effect Of Expiration Of Patent, William J. Isaacson Mar 1937

Trade Marks And Trade Names - Mark Used On Patented Article - Effect Of Expiration Of Patent, William J. Isaacson

Michigan Law Review

P company had distributed patented razor-blades marked Enders, and, upon the expiration of its patent, registered the word as a trade mark. It also used the term Keen-Kutter, as part of its mark, but the use of this term on other goods antedated the patent by several years. P now seeks to enjoin the D company from using either term as part of its trademark. Held, (1) the word Enders having become descriptively designative of this type of razor and blade, D was entitled to use it upon expiration of P's patent; (2) as to Keen-Kutter …


Quasi-Contracts -- Profits As Measure Of Recovery For Appropriation Of Business Idea Nov 1936

Quasi-Contracts -- Profits As Measure Of Recovery For Appropriation Of Business Idea

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff advertising firm submitted advertising plans at the invitation of defendant brewing company, in the hope of getting a contract to handle its advertising. Defendant awarded the contract to another, but appropriated and used extensively a slogan, "The Beer of the Century," from the material submitted by plaintiff, who sued to recover the value thereof. Held, that plaintiff was entitled to recover, on an implied contract to pay for the services, the value to defendant of the fruits of the services. How. J. Ryan & Associates, Inc. v. Century Brewing Assn., 185 Wash. 600, 55 P. (2d) 1053 …


Federal Trade Commission-Recent Trends In Interpretation Of The Federal Trade Commission Act Jun 1934

Federal Trade Commission-Recent Trends In Interpretation Of The Federal Trade Commission Act

Michigan Law Review

The Federal Trade Commission has never been a favored child of the courts. Beginning with the first case to which the Commission was a party, the attitude of the judiciary has clearly been unfriendly. The Commission gets its powers from the Clayton Act and from the Federal Trade Commission Act. The courts have interpreted the Clayton Act strictly, and there is no sign of a change of heart by the majority of the Supreme Court in that respect; it is believed, however, that a few of the recent cases under the Federal Trade Commission Act, both in the Supreme Court …


Federal Practice -Jurisdiction Over Non-Federal Questions - Meaning Of Cause Of Action Jan 1934

Federal Practice -Jurisdiction Over Non-Federal Questions - Meaning Of Cause Of Action

Michigan Law Review

Petitioners brought suit in a federal court to enjoin the respondents from publicly producing a play, alleging that it infringed a copyrighted play of the petitioners and that it would also constitute unfair competition. The parties were citizens of the same State. After considering the claim of infringement on its merits, the court held that, although there was no infringement threatened, the jurisdiction acquired by reason of that federal question might be retained to consider the issue of unfair competition. Hurn v. Oursler, 289 U.S. 238, 53 Sup. Ct. 586 (1933).


Federal Trade Commission - False And Misleading Advertising Apr 1933

Federal Trade Commission - False And Misleading Advertising

Michigan Law Review

The law provided neither practical remedies nor suitable means of preventing false and misleading advertising before the passage of the Federal Trade Commission Act in 1914. The doctrine of caveat emptor had long prevented the effectual protection of misled customers and of competitors consequently injured. True, competitors could enjoin or recover damages-for injury by misleading advertising which took the form of common law "unfair competition." The courts had found no great difficulty in extending established common law principles to make unlawful such obvious violations of the proprietary rights of particular competitors as "simulation" and "disparagement." Although there is little question …


Protection Of Industrial Property, Edward S. Rogers Mar 1929

Protection Of Industrial Property, Edward S. Rogers

Michigan Law Review

It is perhaps too much to attempt a discussion of the origin and history of the common law in an introductory note like this. Suffice it to say that the common law is unwritten and is an inheritance from the English colonists who brought it to North America from England. The common law is the law of the several states. In the United States there is no national common law.


Unfair Competition, Edward S. Rogers Apr 1919

Unfair Competition, Edward S. Rogers

Michigan Law Review

In the recent case of Internationd Newes Seraice v. The Associated Press (U. S. Sup. Ct. Dec. 23, i918), suit was brought by the Associated Press to restrain the defendant from its systematic appropriation of complainant's news, first, by bribing employes; second, by inducing' Associated Press members to violate its by-laws and permit defendant to obtain news from publication; and third, by copying news from bulletin boards and from early editions of complainant's members' newspaper and selling this, bodily or after re-writing it, to defendant's customers. The question as to the right of complainant to relief against the third of …