Doran

This is a contest between two rumpled Santa Clauses. Both begin their inanimate life as red flat plastic bags with some decoration and faces thereon. In this form, they are sold to the purchaser, who stuffs them with crumpled newspapers. The result is a fat life-sized dummy Santa Claus. Only the face on each, which is a happy one, contradicts the otherwise disheveled appearance of both.

The use is obvious. At the Christmas season they are marketed to some storekeepers for decorative purposes and to fond parents for their children.

The Dorans’ Santa Claus was made first and copyrighted. It met with commercial success. Then Sunset House, with American Cover Co. as its manufacturer, copied the product and Sunset marketed it.

Dorans, unhappy, went to court charging Sunset and American Cover Co. with infringement of their copyright and unfair competition. Judgment went in favor of the Dorans. The judgment against the defendants was for $2,291,. the statutory penalty ( 17 U.S.C. § 101 (b)) of one dollar for each infringing copy, and it was ordered that there be no further infringement of the Doran copyright.

Obviously, Santa Claus belongs to the whole world, and next he may be…