## Facts

- La Victoria Foods owned the trademark **SALSA SUPREMA** and had sold Mexican-style salsa under that mark since 1968.
- By 1986, La Victoria’s annual SALSA SUPREMA sales were projected to exceed **$7,000,000**.
- Curtice-Burns began using the mark **LA SUPREMA** in 1984 for tortilla chips and a Mexican-style salsa positioned as a dip.
- Both parties’ products were sold in the **same geographic region** and in many of the **same grocery stores**.
- La Victoria’s SALSA SUPREMA salsa was typically stocked in the section where Mexican products were placed; Curtice-Burns’s LA SUPREMA products were typically stocked in the snacks/chips section.
- Before adopting LA SUPREMA, Curtice-Burns ordered a trademark search that disclosed La Victoria’s SALSA SUPREMA registration, but Curtice-Burns proceeded believing differences in label appearance would prevent confusion.
- La Victoria presented a **shopping-intercept** survey conducted in three Seattle–Tacoma area grocery stores: shoppers were intercepted at random on entry, offered $2, and instructed verbally to purchase either SALSA SUPREMA (153 shoppers) or LA SUPREMA (150 shoppers); the results showed **11.9%** actual confusion.
- The survey’s designer, Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, also asked 10 grocery-store workers where LA SUPREMA salsa was located; **7 of 10** directed her to where SALSA SUPREMA was shelved.
- Curtice-Burns offered its own survey: consumers were invited to an office setting, shown a jar of LA SUPREMA, and asked product-identification questions; the court found this survey did not test confusion between the two marks and credited its designer less than La Victoria’s witnesses.

## Issues

1. Whether Curtice-Burns’s use of **LA SUPREMA** on Mexican-style salsa was likely to cause confusion with La Victoria’s **SALSA SUPREMA** mark, constituting infringement under the Lanham Act.
2. If infringement was found, whether La Victoria was entitled to monetary relief (damages, profits, costs, and attorneys’ fees) under 15 U.S.C. § 1117, or whether the absence of willful intent limited relief to an injunction.

## Decision

- The court found that Curtice-Burns’s use of **LA SUPREMA** for salsa infringed La Victoria’s **SALSA SUPREMA** trademark because it created a likelihood of consumer confusion.
- The court entered injunctive relief barring Curtice-Burns from using the words **“suprema”** or **“salsa suprema”** on its salsa products.
- The court denied monetary relief (damages, profits, costs, and attorneys’ fees), finding Curtice-Burns did not willfully intend to trade on La Victoria’s goodwill.

## Legal Principles

- Trademark infringement under the Lanham Act turns on whether consumers are likely to be confused about source, sponsorship, or affiliation, evaluated through multiple factors such as similarity of the marks, relatedness of the goods, overlap in sales channels, and evidence of actual confusion.
- Strong evidence of actual confusion can come from real-world purchasing conditions; a shopping-intercept survey conducted in grocery stores and tied to an attempted purchase can be persuasive on likelihood of confusion.
- Confusion shown among store employees tasked with assisting shoppers can further support a finding that ordinary purchasers are likely to be confused.
- Differences in label design or product placement within a store do not, by themselves, defeat infringement when the marks share a prominent term and the products compete in the same stores and region.
- Under 15 U.S.C. § 1117, monetary remedies and attorneys’ fees are discretionary; a court may grant an injunction yet deny damages, profits, costs, or fees where the defendant’s infringement is not willful or “exceptional.”
- A defendant’s pre-adoption trademark search and a claimed belief that labeling differences avoided confusion may support a finding of non-willful infringement, even if the court ultimately finds a likelihood of confusion.

## Conclusion

In *La Victoria Foods v. Curtice-Burns*, the district court held after a bench trial that Curtice-Burns’s use of LA SUPREMA on a competing salsa was likely to confuse consumers with La Victoria’s long-used SALSA SUPREMA mark, relying heavily on evidence of actual confusion from a shopping-intercept survey and employee misdirection; it therefore enjoined Curtice-Burns from using “suprema” or “salsa suprema” on salsa, but denied damages, profits, costs, and attorneys’ fees because Curtice-Burns lacked willful intent to trade on La Victoria’s goodwill.


La Victoria Foods v. Curtice-Burns, No. C85-1557MTB (1986)