Court Opinion

ID: 9446092
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:45:56.23318+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:31.261121
License: Public Domain

SANBORN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
Whether the trade name “Agate-Top” as used by the defendant (appellee) was so similar to the plaintiff’s (appellant’s) trademark “Flint-Top” as to deceive or be likely to deceive purchasers and cause them to buy the defendant’s paint in the belief that it was the plaintiff’s product, was, in my opinion, a question of fact for the trial court, and not a question of law for this Court. See and compare, Cleo Syrup Corporation v. Coca-Cola Co., 8 Cir., 139 F.2d 416, 417, 418, 150 A.L.R. 1056. In that case we said that we would not, upon review, retry issues of fact or substitute our judgment with respect to such issues for that of the trial court. We also said that the power of a trial court to decide doubtful issues of fact was not limited to deciding them correctly, and that the weight of the evidence indicating that the product of a defendant, in a case such as this, had on occasions been sold for the product of the plaintiff, was for the trial court to appraise.
James E. Stewart, the president of the plaintiff, was asked at the trial what conduct of the defendant he considered unfair. His answer was:
“We consider the use by the defendant of identical color shades and names and numbers, and their ordering of their supplier to furnish identical shades and color names and numbers to them, which they were formerly receiving from us as the main objection that we have entered here.”
The conduct of the defendant in using the same color chart and same numbers, after the termination of its relations with the plaintiff, as had previously been used with the plaintiff’s consent, has an element of unfairness about it, but I believe that that is not enough to justify a ruling that as a matter of law such conduct amounted to unfair competition. Under the evidence and the applicable law, I think the question whether the conduct of the defendant infringed the plaintiff’s trademark rights or amounted to unfair competition was for the trial court to decide. I would affirm.