Court Opinion

ID: 9653826
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 17:56:26.663272+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:02.326970
License: Public Domain

GARRETT, Associate Judge
(specially concurring).
I concur with the majority in the opinion that “Lux” and “Tex,” as trade-marks, bear such a resemblance as that, when Applied to the goods of the same descriptive qualities, as is the ease here, confusion in the mind of the public or deception of purchasers would probably result. There is at least a doubt which shojild, under the well-settled practice, be resolved in favor of opposer.
I do not, however, regard it as necessary or proper to base this conclusion, even in part, upon any deduction as to the motive of applicant in adopting its word.
This' is a proceeding under the statute, not in equity. It was so recognized and treated in the pleadings and briefs of the respective parties. It is not charged therein that appellee’s motive in adopting the mark and seeking to register it was to. profit by appellant’s advertising or to appropriate the good will of the latter. No testimony was taken in the ease; the stipulations have nothing in them concerning motive. I do not see why ,the court should give any expression upon it. So much for the question of necessity, which is the least material ground of my objection.
What I most gravely question is the correctness of the doctrine embraced in the following words of the majority opinion:
“ * * * but if, in the adoption amj use of the. mark, there be a purpose of confusing the mind of the public as to the origin of the goods to which it is applied, we have a right, in determining the question of likelihood of confusion or mistake, to consider the motive in adopting the mark as indicating an opinion, upon the part of one vitally interested, that confusion or mistake would likely result from use of the mark. After all, the determination of the question of likelihood of confusion or mistake in the use of trade-marks must, as a general rule, be a matter of opinion, and not the result of testimony produced as to the existence or absence of such confusion. Therefore, the tribunals of the Patent Office, and this court as a reviewing body, may, in cases where one adopts and uses a mark with the motive of confusing the mind of the public, consider that motive as one of the factors in determining the question of whether use of such mark is likely to cause confusion or mistake in the mind of the public.”
If this were a proceeding in equity involving allegations of infringement and unfair competition, the question of motive on the part of appellee might constitute a most important factor in the determination of the case.. If so, it would become the subject of testimony; proof would at least be adduced of facts from which a court might make a ju*413dicial finding upon the question of motive. The Fairbank Company Case, cited and quoted from in the majority opinion, was such a case. The opinion therein was by the United States Circuit Court of Appeals of the Ninth Circuit. It dealt, not with registration under the statute, but with infringement under the common law.
Ours is not an equity jurisdiction in cases appealed from the Patent Office. Again and again the Supreme Court of the United States has held that the jurisdiction of tho Court of Appeals of tho District of Columbia, to which jurisdiction we succeeded by the Act of March 2, 1929 (section 2, subd. a [28 USCA § 309a, subd. a]), in registration proceedings, is purely administrative. It has been repeatedly said, in substance, by the Supreme Court, that the District of Columbia Court of Appeals became a part of tho Patent Office machinery for the purposes expressed in the statute. It is not deemed necessary to cite authority upon this well-settled principle.
The Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia also had and still has an equity jurisdiction in infringement eases. It had two distinct and separate lines of authority, and that court itself recognized this and declared it in numerous decisions with which the bar and most interested laymen, I take it, are quite familiar.
I have not found in any ease by that court, arising under the registration statute, where it ever declared that motive might be a faetor in aiding in the determination of the probability of confusion.
ITow can it be an aid? The majority decision says it may be considered “as indicating an opinion upon the part of one vitally interested that confusion or mistake would likely result from use of the mark.” The obvious implication is that such an opinion (which in almost all eases would have to be inferred) by a vitally interested party, being, I suppose, in the nature of an admission against interest, is a proper faetor in shaping the opinion of the court.
If this become a rale of this court, then the converse of the proposition will have to be taken into account. If a party can succeed in convincing tho court that he has no motive to confuse, then it must be inferred that he has no opinion that it would confuse, or, if he had knowledge of the opposing mark at all, that it is his opinion that it would not confuse. Shall that negative opinion be a faetor in shaping the opinion of the court? How can the opinion of either party be in any way an essential or proper factor in the equation? Will the quality of the motive of the parties render a mark confusing which is not otherwise so, or vice versa? It seems to me that this court, in performing the duty which Congress has seen fit to commit to it, in registration cases arising under the statute, has only to deal with marks, not motives.
So far as the instant ease is concerned, there is not a, hint about motive to be found in the record anywhere; no pleading mentions it and no testimony refers to it, nor to any act from which motive might he judicially determined. It is an inference deduced wholly, as I understand it, from the resemblance of the marks, since they are to be applied to goods of the same descriptive qualities. Therefore, in the instant case, one must observe the resemblance of the marks before he has the mental concept of possible motive. So the lino of reasoning seems to bo: There is a resemblance between two words which are applied to almost identical goods; from this resemblance a motive on tho part of applicant will b© inferred; from that motive it is concluded that appellee was of opinion that its word would confuse, and therefore this motive shall be a factor in aiding in the determination of whether there is marked resemblance which would cause confusion.
A motive which can only be deduced from a cause already determined is nevertheless to be taken as a faetor in ascertaining whether that cause really exists.
Notwithstanding my high regard for the mental equipment and alertness of the author of the majority opinion, I find myself unable to accede to the correctness of this view, and, because of my belief that the court is here laying down a rule of gravest importance, I venture to express my disagreement with that line of reasoning.
Since ours is a purely statutory jurisdiction, I fear that, if in its exercise we enter the broad field of equity for precedents and núes, we shall presently have the practice in statutory registration proceedings in such a state of confusion as that litigants under it will he at sea as to what proofs to take and what sort of a record to build up in the Patent Office.
I quite agree with the statement in the majority decision that “after all, the determination of the question of likelihood of confusion or mistake in the use of trade-marks must, as a general rule, be a matter of opinion,” but the opinion which must control is that of the Patent Office tribunals, or, upon appeal, of this court, and not that of the *414parties litigant. A person proceeding with the best of motives may be denied a registration because the marks will be found likely to confuse, while others, whose motives may well be suspected, will succeed because the marks will be found so dissimilar as to negative the likelihood of confusion.