Happy Ending

A long-winded soap opera came to a happy ending last week. Back in 1941, huge Lever Bros. (Swan, Spry, etc.) sued equally huge Procter & Gamble (Ivory. Crisco, etc.) in Baltimore, contending that P. & G.'s new Ivory soap infringed on Lever's brand-new patented Swan soap. Promptly, P. & G. fired back with a suit of its own, charging that Swan soap infringed on old Ivory soap (TIME, June 22, 1942 ). After a three-year legal struggle, Lever Bros. won its suit in appellate court last December, got ready to battle P. & G. on up into the U.S. Supreme Court. Suddenly both decided to call it quits, dropped all suits in an out-of-court settlement. The terms learned last week: P. & G. will pay Lever Bros. $9 million. Lever Bros. will go on making Swan. P. & G. will continue turning out new Ivory.

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