Business: Soap Decision

Nearly a year ago in Federal Court in South Bend there came up for trial a famed suit involving four-fifths of the U. S. soap business. Procter & Gamble and Colgate-Palmolive-Peet were suing Lever Brothers Co. for infringement of patents covering the art of spraying hot, liquid soap into hot, dry air where it becomes Ivory Snow (Procter & Gamble), Super Suds (Colgate) or Rinso (Lever). For weeks Federal Judge Thomas W. Slick listened to a flood of foamy oratory, saw reels of soap cinemas, inspected elaborate soap laboratories set up for his edification by expensive soap lawyers (TIME, Oct. 15). Last week Judge Slick, whose brother runs a laundry, handed down a short (1,500 word) decision, concluding: “While defendant’s [Lever’s] product resembles to the casual observer the product of plaintiffs, it in many respects is quite dissimilar. . . . Neither defendant’s process nor its product infringes on the patents of plaintiffs.”