| This is from the Order dated 9-7-1999 CPC International, Inc. (Bestfoods) v. Skippy, Inc. & Joan Crosby Tibbetts |
admitted that the FDA complained about Rosefield's 1933 Skippy
label, but he
did not reveal to the FDA Examiner in 1966 that the Patent Office
had prohibited
Rosefield's Skippy application as a matter of statutory law in
1934.
I sent a demand letter to CPC counsel Hanes Heller, warning
him Skippy would
re-enter the food market with an authentic Skippy product, but I
got no reply. My
husband and I found a licensee interested in selling Skippy
caramel corn with
peanuts in a child's sand pail that my sister (a commercial
artist) and I designed
with Percy Crosby's Skippy character to parody Volkhardt's
admissions of trade
forgery. Skippy counsel James L. Kurtz advised us to recapture
the market "CPC
stole from your father", assuring us CPC would "commit
legal suicide" if they
dared to sue. Annual minimum sales of the product were estimated
at $1.5
million dollars, and the artistic pail was an instant success.
Then our attorney
suddenly refused to represent Skippy, denying that CPC had
influenced him.
CPC then made a major change on its Skippy label to conceal its
imitation of
Crosby's distinctive lettering. Our licensee told us they were
having problems
getting the product on store shelves via jobbers and distributors
who were afraid
of CPC's reprisal, but did not tell us that CPC had sent a cease
and desist letter to
our licensee, Pineland Peanut Processors. My husband and I became
alarmed
when attorney Kurtz warned us CPC intended to sue until we were
"both dead."
We met with the assistant U.S. Attorney. He told us there was
"strong evidence of
CPC's fraud on the court in 1980", and assured us he would
take action if CPC
sued. Both Kurtz and CPC were fully aware my husband had been
hospitalized
and diagnosed with congestive heart disease, and that further
litigation could be
dangerous.
Pages 27-28
CPC made a secret with our licensee to cut off our royalty
income and got a
preliminary injunction. My pro se protests were futile. I was
unaware then that
Congress in 1984 made trademark counterfeiting a federal crime,
but could not
believe that the government would turn a deaf ear and blind eye
to CPC's
predatory conduct.
* * *
We returned to Virginia, unaware that CPC had filed a bogus
default motion in
our absence.
* * *
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