E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co. v. Yoshida International, Inc.
United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York
393 F. Supp. 502 (1975)
Facts
E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Company (plaintiff) owned the trademark for “TEFLON” for non-stick pots and pans. Yoshida International, Inc. (defendant) manufactured the “EFLON” zipper. DuPont sued Yoshida for trademark infringement. Yoshida argued that TEFLON had become a generic term and thus was not eligible for trademark protection. Yoshida introduced two consumer surveys that asked for the name of the non-stick feature. Of the respondents that were aware of the feature, 86.1 percent of respondents in one survey and 81.4 percent in the other responded solely with TEFLON as the name. Only 7.3 percent and 9.1 percent, respectively, of those that were aware named DuPont as the manufacturer. DuPont introduced a consumer survey that identified a series of names and asking for each name whether it was a brand name or a common name. 68 percent of respondents identified TEFLON as a brand name; 31 percent identified TEFLON as a common name.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Neaher, J.)
What to do next…
Here's why 705,000 law students have relied on our case briefs:
- Written by law professors and practitioners, not other law students. 44,300 briefs, keyed to 983 casebooks. Top-notch customer support.
- The right amount of information, includes the facts, issues, rule of law, holding and reasoning, and any concurrences and dissents.
- Access in your classes, works on your mobile and tablet. Massive library of related video lessons and high quality multiple-choice questions.
- Easy to use, uniform format for every case brief. Written in plain English, not in legalese. Our briefs summarize and simplify; they don’t just repeat the court’s language.
