Re: [CNI-COPYRIGHT] Vassar College vs. Vassar Nuts???

>>> christensen[_at_]catlas.mv.com 04/15/03 08:11PM >>> wrote:
Hello, all.. I recently came across the following reference:

>>Most artist rights [up to and into the 1960's] were based on a 1913
>>law suit called "Vassar College vs. Vassar Nuts."
>>The outcome was that Vassar Nuts could use Vassar
>>College's logo and sell nuts as though they were a fund
>>raiser for Vassar College. The theory was that if Vassar
>>College had made reproductions of the logo on school
>>pennants and gave them away free, then they didn't
>>hold any value in the logo; therefore the logo was in the
>>public domain.

Is this true? Was there such a case? If so, does this passage correctly characterize it? Did it really form the basis for "artists's rights" into the 1960's? To me it sounds like a "twice-told tale." Can anyone enlighten me?
<<<<<

OK, this was too irresistable not to look into. I found a case entitled Vassar College v. Loose-Wiles Biscuit Co., 197 F. 982 (W.D. Mo. 1912), in which the College brought suit against the defendant, who was making and selling chocolates called "Vassar Chocolates" (not "nuts," as your source indicates). According to the case, at pp. 983-84:

 "It is substantially charged in the bill that the packages containing  that candy and the advertisements thereof employ the name of  Vassar, a likeness of a young lady in scholastic garb and  wearing a mortarboard hat, an *984 imitation of the college  pennant, a college yell, and an imitation of the college seal, with  the words 'Vassar Chocolates' and 'Always fresh' substituted  for the words 'Vassar College' and 'Purity and Wisdom,'  respectively. Complainant charges that it is thereby brought into  public contempt and ridicule, and that, because thereof, its  business is injured, and its graduates and students humiliated."

This seems to be an early attempt to establish what would today be actionable under the "tarnishment" branch of trademark dilution law. Today, of course, the College would almost certainly win on a standard trademark likelihood-of-confusion theory. At the time, however, goods had to be closely related to win a trademark suit, so the College didn't even attempt traditional trademark law. Instead, it relied on something resembling a right of publicity theory for organizations, instead of individuals. [At the time, this theory would have been a branch of the right of privacy.] The court rejected the claim, saying (at p. 994):

 "I am unable to perceive that any right exists in complainant  which is cognizable in a court of equity; nor can I perceive any  injury which this court has power to remedy. The injurious  effects, if any, of the advertisements complained of, are  speculative in the highest degree. They seem to me to be largely  creations of fancy, due to supersensitiveness and apprehension.  They are lodged rather in a feeling of distaste on the part of  those interested in Vassar College for seeing its name and  insignia, inferentially at least, linked with any commercial  pursuit, than in any appreciable injury to its tangible property. I  have not felt, and cannot feel, that any one could think less of  this eminent institution by reason of the acts of defendants  recited in this bill; and I believe it to be beyond the power of  this court to take cognizance of the psychological injuries  recited. . . . Individual conception of natural justice is not  law. . . . If the use of a name in commercial publications,  as in the case at bar, be deemed an unwarranted  invasion of personal rights, it is within the province of the  Legislature so to declare. The courts cannot create a right  unknown to the common law, and not provided by statute."

The case was cited twice in the 1960s for the proposition that a corporation does not possess a right of privacy. Hardly the basis for "artists' rights" well into the 1960s. Your source is ill-informed.

Tyler T. Ochoa
Professor and Co-Director
Center for Intellectual Property Law
Whittier Law School
3333 Harbor Blvd.
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
(714) 444-4141, ext. 243
(714) 444-1854 (fax)
tochoa[_at_]law.whittier.edu Received on Thu Apr 24 2003 - 01:54:56 GMT