P&G; Wins Crisp-Chewy Cookie Lawsuits : 3 Other Producers to Pay $125 Million for Patent Infringement

Procter & Gamble Co. announced today that three cookie producers have agreed to pay it $125 million to settle lawsuits filed over “crisp-and-chewy” patent infringements in what P&G; called the largest payment on record as a settlement or court award in patent litigation.

The agreement between P&G; and the three--Keebler Co. of Elmhurst, Ill.; Nabisco Brands Inc. of East Hanover, N.J., and Frito-Lay Inc. of Plano, Tex.--was signed in Wilmington, Del., this morning by Chief U.S. District Judge Joseph J. Longobardi. It came just three weeks before trial was scheduled to start.

The settlement also includes findings that P&G;’s patent is legal and enforceable, and permanent injunctions that prevent the three from infringing on the patent in the future.

Other terms of the agreement, including how much each company will have to pay P&G;, were not disclosed.

The company filed suit against Keebler, Nabisco and Frito-Lay in 1984, about one year after it introduced the crisp-and-chewy cookies under its Duncan Hines brand name.

A P&G; spokesman, Donald Tassone, said the three changed the formulations of the cookie brands in question shortly after the suits were filed. “Their new formulations do not violate our patent,” he said.

“We’ve worked hard to prove we’re right, and we won,” John E. Pepper, P&G;’s president, said. “We believe this judgment is a complete vindication of our rights under this patent.”

Pepper said the company was forced to file suit because the three “beat us to the market in most of the country, with the very product we had developed and patented.”

As a result of the actions by Keebler, Nabisco and Frito-Lay, Pepper said, P&G; “sharply curtailed production” of its Duncan Hines cookies in the United States and Canada in June, 1987.