Source: https://openjurist.org/289/f2d/496
Timestamp: 2019-02-20 11:59:49
Document Index: 11505863

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 145', '§ 1057', '§ 1057', '§ 1052', '§ 1052', '§ 5']

289 F2d 496 Application of Deister Concentrator Company Inc | OpenJurist
289 F. 2d 496 - Application of Deister Concentrator Company Inc
289 F2d 496 Application of Deister Concentrator Company Inc
289 F.2d 496
Application of DEISTER CONCENTRATOR COMPANY, Inc.
"It is apparent that the shape of applicant's deck tables [table decks?] is utilitarian and must be characterized as functional. It appears that applicant selected the rhomboidal shape or design to increase production and efficiency of its coal cleaning tables. It is believed that the rhomboidal outline design which applicant is seeking to register serves only to illustrate the shape of its table decks. In the case of Ex parte Alan Wood Steel Company, 101 U.S. P.Q. 209, the Examiner in Chief held that `The fact that the design is recognizable is not sufficient to make it registrable, for if this were the criterion then every article made by one manufacturer in a form somewhat different from articles of like kind made by others would be registrable as an alleged mark.'"
"There can be no question on the record presented but that the diagonal or rhomboidal design of the deck component of applicant's product is functional. As such, it is not a trademark. See: In re Bourns, 117 USPQ 38 (CCPA, 1958); Alan Wood Steel Company v. Watson, Comr.Pats., [150 F.Supp. 861] 113 USPQ 311 (DCDC, 1957).
In Alan Wood Steel Co. v. Watson, D.C. D.C., 150 F.Supp. 861, and Ex parte Alan Wood Steel Co., 101 USPQ 209 (P. O. Examiner in Chief), which seem to us indistinguishable in principle from the present case, the alleged mark sought to be registered was a raised non-skid pattern integrally produced on steel plate flooring. An illustration of it will be found in the opinion of Examiner-in-Chief Federico in 101 USPQ at p. 210. As his opinion also shows, some seventy affidavits were filed to establish that the design did in fact enable the affiants to recognize the plates as the product of the applicant. He concluded, nevertheless, that, in itself, that fact would not justify registration.1 The case was taken to the District Court for the District of Columbia under 35 U.S.C. § 145 where Judge Holtzoff sustained the refusal to register because the configuration of goods sought to be registered was "utilitarian" or "functional," citing The J. R. Clark Co. v. Murray Metal Products Co., 5 Cir., 219 F.2d 313. Judge Holtzoff said:
"Were the law otherwise, it would be possible for a manufacturer or dealer, who is unable to secure a patent on his product or on his design, to obtain a monopoly on an unpatentable device by registering it as a trademark. The potential consequences to the public might be very serious, because while a patent is issued for only a limited term, a trademark becomes the permanent property of its owner and secures for him a monopoly in perpetuity." 150 F.Supp. at page 862.
"A novel shape or appearance that is functional in character may not acquire any secondary meaning that would render it subject to exclusive appropriation as a trademark." 150 F.Supp. at page 862. [Emphasis ours.]
A functional feature has been defined in the Restatement of the Law of Torts, Section 742, as a feature of goods which affects their purpose, action, or performance, or the facility or economy of processing, handling or using them. The courts have accepted this definition and have also held "functional" the shape, size, or form of an article which contributes to its utility, durability or effectiveness or the ease with which it serves its function. James Heddon's Sons v. Millsite Steel & Wire Works, Inc., 6 Cir., 128 F.2d 6; J. C. Penney Co. v. H. D. Lee Mercantile Co., 8 Cir., 120 F.2d 949; West Point Mfg. Co. v. Detroit Stamping Co., 6 Cir., 222 F.2d 581.
In the J. C. Penney case, speaking of the practice in the overall industry of copying competitors' improvements, the court said:
We would add only that copyright, as well as patenting, may temporarily prevent copying.2 Like statements by the courts, that right to copy in the absence of such statutory protection is a fundamental aspect of our law, have been made on numerous occasions and an extensive consideration of the subject and review of authorities will be found in the West Point case, supra. In that case the court said:
See Sylvania Electric Products, Inc. v. Dura Electric Lamp Co., 3 Cir., 247 F.2d 730, affirming D.C.N.J., 144 F.Supp. 112.
It is basic to our consideration, therefore, that the socio-economic policy supported by the general law is the encouragement of competition by all fair means, and that encompasses the right to copy, very broadly interpreted, except where copying is lawfully prevented by a copyright or patent. And since under the principle laid down in Article I, section 8, of the Constitution copyright or patent protection is necessarily limited in time, we are not seriously concerned with whether he who claims trademark rights of unlimited duration now has or did have patent protection,3 or what that protection is or was. We, therefore, see no reason to consider appellant's patents except to the extent they may contain evidence of the functionality of the outline shape sought to be registered as a trademark.4
In contemplating the registration of a mark on the Principal Register we must bear in mind the significance of such registration. Under section 7(b) of the Lanham Act (15 U.S.C. § 1057(b), 15 U.S.C.A. § 1057(b) it constitutes "prima facie evidence of the validity of the registration, registrant's ownership of the mark, and of registrant's exclusive right to use the mark in commerce in connection with the goods or services specified in the certificate" (our emphasis). This means, so far as this case is concerned, that we cannot sanction registration on the Principal Register of anything unless the applicant for registration, absent a copyright or patent, would have the right under the general law to prevent others from using or copying it. Unless he has such right, he does not own a trademark. It is trite to say that the Lanham Act does not create trademarks. While it may create some new substantive rights in trademarks, unless the trademarks pre-exist there is nothing to be registered. Neither does it create ownership, but only evidence thereof. Under section 1, only "The owner of a trade-mark" can apply for registration. Since the act nowhere defines ownership of a trademark (see 68 Harv.L.Rev. 814, Trade-Marks and Unfair Competition, at p. 876), the law of trademark ownership must be found outside the statute, in the absence of some specific provision to the contrary. We know of none and appellant tells us that nowhere in the statute is a "functional" mark mentioned pro or con.
What must be determined, therefore, is whether appellant has the "exclusive right to use" the outline shape sought to be registered, in other words, whether appellant has, apart from possible temporary monopoly rights based on patent or copyright, the right to exclude others from using that shape in shaking table decks.5
On what basis does appellant claim to have the exclusive right to use its table deck outline? Specifically, its brief never comes to grips with this basic issue, perhaps because the Patent Office never raised the issue in that form but only in terms of "functionality." To that rejection appellant's reply, supported by the affidavit evidence, was twofold: (a) that its alleged mark had "become distinctive of the applicant's goods in commerce," the language of 2(f) (15 U.S.C. § 1052 (f), 15 U.S.C.A. § 1052(f); and (b) that it had acquired a "secondary meaning."
The "secondary meaning" aspect of the argument is the practical equivalent of the "distinctive" argument except that reliance is placed on a different expression. We refer back to truism (3). The distinction we should like to make here is between a de facto "secondary meaning" and one to which courts will attach legal consequences. While there are many statements in the cases which seem to say that if a mark has acquired a "secondary meaning" its owner will be protected in an exclusive right to use it, the clear weight of authority shows that the courts will not support exclusive rights in any word or shape which, in their opinion, the public has the right to use in the absence of patent or copyright protection. In the Alan Wood Steel and J. R. Clark Co. cases, supra, it was said that the shapes "may not acquire any secondary meaning." [150 F.Supp. 862.] This was simply a refusal to give any legal significance to the existence of a de facto "secondary meaning" in shape indicative of source. In Upjohn Co. v. Schwartz, 2 Cir., 246 F.2d 254, the court simply stated that the size, shape, and color of medicinal capsules were "functional" features which "could not" acquire any secondary meaning. In the Kellogg case the Supreme Court said there is "no basis here for applying the doctrine of secondary meaning." In the same paragraph it said, speaking of the name "shredded wheat" which was claimed to have acquired a secondary meaning:
It seems to us that this case perfectly exemplifies what we mean by a functional or utilitarian shape which is incapable of acquiring a legally recognizable "secondary meaning" or of becoming an enforceable trademark for the simple reason that, absent patent protection, the public has the right to copy the shape and enjoy its advantages. Under no circumstances can it be accorded the legal protection to which trademarks are entitled. This being so, there is no need to consider the extensive efforts made by the use of what appellant calls advertising "gimmicks" featuring "rhomboidal" shapes or otherwise, to turn this outline shape of the goods, per se, into a registrable mark. It has attempted the impossible. In the words of the J. C. Penney case, supra:
What Mr. Federico actually said on this point is contained in the portion of the examiner's letter we have quoted above
At the present time and especially since Mazer v. Stein, 347 U.S. 201, 74 S.Ct. 460, 98 L.Ed. 630, there is a certain amount of overlap in the protection available through design patents and that available by copyright, insofar as a design may qualify as a "work of art" under 17 U.S.C. § 5
It is our view that the only significance of the existence of an expired patent on the article copied is that it adds another reason for saying that the public has the right to copy it, it being basic to the patent system that the public may copy when the term of a patent comes to an end, with certain exceptions. However, the right to copy is not derived in any way from the patent law; it is a right which inheres in the public under the general law except to the extent the patent law may remove it. The same is true of copyrights. When a temporary incursion on the public right ends, the public right remains. No new right is born
This case is the reverse of the more common situation in that the patents were not cited by the Patent Office to show what the public would have a right to use when they expired, but were put in evidence by appellant to provide grounds for an argument that the structures shown in the patents didnot have the outline shape it desires to register. As might be expected under these circumstances, the patents are only mediocre support for the Patent Office position.
At oral argument the Patent Office Solicitor, as he often has in other cases, said that the alleged mark was not registrable because it is "not a trademark." That is stating the same proposition in a shorthand form. To say one has a "trademark" implies ownership and ownership implies the right to exclude others. If the law will not protect one's claim of right to exclude others from using an alleged trademark, then he does not own a "trademark," for that which all are free to use cannot be a trademark