TRADE: Just Biscuits

In 1895, one Henry D. Perky was granted a patent on machinery for manufacturing his "pillow shape" Shredded Wheat Biscuits. When the patent expired 17 years later, Kellogg Co. began making a whole-wheat biscuit: ten years later it made this biscuit frankly similar to Shredded Wheat in shape & size. By 1929 Kellogg had sold plenty of its pillow-shape biscuits. That year National Biscuit Co.

acquired Perky's business. There followed a long legal skirmish in the U. S. and in England: National Biscuit sued Kellogg, valuing the Shredded Wheat trade name at $5,000,000...

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