Kansas Milling Co. v. Kansas Flour Mills Co.

Citations

• 89 Kan. 855
• 133 P. 542
• 1913 Kan. LEXIS 137

Syllabus

<p>SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.</p> <p>1. Trade Name — Geographical Term — Unfa/ir Competition — Fraudulent Intent Not Necessary. In order for a corporation which has built up a business under its name, which includes a descriptive geographical term, to he entitled to enjoin a new company from engaging in the same business in the same locality under a name so similar that reasonably intelligent and careful customers will naturally be misled, it is not necessary that an intent to defraud shall exist.</p> <p>2. - Similarity of Names — Test—When a Question of Law. Whether the name adopted by a new corporation, embodying a descriptive geographical term, is so similar to one under which a business has already been established as to warrant an injunction against its use, depends upon the character of the business and its relation to the geographical term, but when these are determined the question becomes one of law, turning upon the likelihood of deception resulting to persons exercising reasonable care.</p> <p>3. Dependant’s Corporate Name — Not an Infringement on Plaintiff’s Trade Name. Although “The Kansas Milling Company,” engaged at Wichita in the manufacture and sale of flour, has built up under that name a business extending throughout the Union and to foreign countries, it is not entitled to restrain a new corporation, owning flour mills in several other cities, from engaging in the same business, with general offices at Wichita, under the name “The Kansas Flour Mills Company,” where no steps have been taken by the new company* to increase such confusion as might naturally result from the similarity of the names.</p> <p>4. - Same. In that situation the printing by the new company upon the sacks in which its flour is sold of its name, followed by the words “General Offices, Wichita, Kansas,” does not amount to an implied representation that its product is manufactured there.</p>