Fairway Foods, Inc. v. Fairway Markets, Inc.

Plaintiff herein is a cooperative, owned wholly by retail grocers located and doing business in the States of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Iowa. Plaintiff’s sole business is the procurement and sale of food products to its member grocers, all of whom are located in and doing business exclusively in the five states mentioned. Plaintiff has established in these five states a secondary meaning for the term “Fairway” or “Fairway Foods”, and plaintiff registered the name with the United States Patent Office.

Plaintiff purchases its foodstuffs (which are then sold in its member stores) in various communities of the United States. Many of its purchases are in California where the foodstuff purchased is processed, canned and packed. Plaintiff places contracts for processing of fruits and vegetables with. California packers and processors, send *841 ing to them its own labels to be affixed to the finished canned or packaged item. Subsequently, the cans and packages so labeled are shipped to warehouses belonging to plaintiff, situated somewhere within the territorial limits of the five states in which it operates, and from such warehouses the goods are distributed…