A Dictionary Suit Ends in Word <i> Costly</i>

Delivering the final word in a monthlong trial, a federal court jury Tuesday awarded Merriam-Webster Co. nearly $2.3 million after finding that Random House had damaged Merriam by issuing a volume confusingly similar to Merriam’s “Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary.”

The trial opened to public view a little-known page from the world of dictionary publishing, an industry in which genteel academic linguists and lexicographers are being edged aside by brass-knuckled marketers and salespeople.

The six-member jury ruled that Random House, whose “Webster’s College Dictionary” went on sale in February, infringed on the “trade dress” of Merriam’s market-leading dictionary. The Random House volume, the jurors found, imitated Merriam’s with its color scheme of white lettering on a red background and its use of the word “Webster’s” on the volume’s dust-jacket spine.

In addition, the jury found that Random House “diluted the distinctiveness of”--but did not infringe on--Merriam’s “Webster’s Collegiate” trademark. The jury awarded Merriam $1,774,713 in compensatory damages and $500,000 in punitive damages.

“This is a victory for consumers,” said Lile H. Deinard, an attorney for Springfield, Mass.-based Merriam. Random House, she said, had been “poaching upon the valuable goodwill of Merriam-Webster and its famous dictionary.”

Lawrence Rosenthal, an attorney for New York-based Random House, said he will move to set aside the verdict, which was reached less than four hours after deliberations began.

“This unfortunate dispute has nothing to do about lexicographers and everything to do about marketers,” said Louis Milic, a professor of English at Cleveland State University and secretary-treasurer of the Dictionary Society of North America. “It is a much more bottom-line industry than it used to be, very cutthroat on the business side.”

Among issues in the case was whether the term Webster’s, when used in conjunction with the word college, could be used to label a dictionary other than Merriam’s.

Both sides acknowledged what is probably unknown to most consumers--that the name “Webster’s” itself passed into the public domain decades ago and is now featured on dozens of dictionaries of widely varying quality.

“The real question is, is ‘Webster’s’ plus ‘College Dictionary’ going to confuse the public?” asked dictionary editor David Barnhart of Lexik House Publishers, who testified as an expert witness on behalf of Random House. “My guess is not any more than the public is already confused.”

But Barnhart was countered by Merriam’s expert witness, John Algeo, a professor of English at the University of Georgia.

“The expression ‘Webster’s Collegiate’ is understood by people knowledgeable about dictionaries to refer to the series published by Merriam-Webster,” he said.

Merriam-Webster’s volume is by far the leader in the class of dictionaries known as “college dictionaries”: hard-covered volumes containing between 150,000 and 180,000 entries.

Industry sources estimate that Merriam-Webster sells about 1 million copies of its volume each year. Webster’s New World Dictionary, published by Simon & Schuster, is second with 500,000 to 600,000 copies. The American Heritage Dictionary published by Houghton Mifflin is third with 350,000. Random House’s previous entry, the Random House College Dictionary, ranked fourth with 200,000.

Random House market research indicated that its sales would triple if Webster’s were added to the volume’s name, according to documents introduced in the case.

Said one dictionary expert who asked to remain anonymous: “History has shown that publishers who refuse to use the word ‘Webster’s,’ however principled, have suffered the consequences in the marketplace.”

As for the jury’s finding that Random House infringed on Merriam’s “trade dress,” court papers include an affidavit from Random House President and Publisher Harold Evans in which he described the two books’ typefaces as “markedly different, as any typographer would confirm.”