Tə – ˈmeɪ – toʊ / Tə – ˈmɑ – toʊ: Fruit or Vegetable?
I recently visited the annual Orange County Fair for the first time and was very impressed with the array of attractions. Thousands of turkeys barbecued over open flames raising clouds of the essence of summer over the entirety of the fair. A Bubble Roller pool showcased kids zipped up in life sized bubbles and tossed into a giant pool to float and swirl about. And incredible gardens were growing everything from herbs, strange fruits, and common vegetables – including tomatoes.
I must say that I am passionate about home grown tomatoes and I am particularly fond of the heirloom varietals (including Mr. Stripeys and Green Zebras). But what caught my eye at the fair was a small placard below a row of run of the mill tomato plants that brought up one of those questions that supposedly was resolved in kindergarten. Are tomatoes fruits or vegetables?
Of course they are fruits! Everybody knows that. Ask any kindergartner and she will tell you the same. But not according to this placard and not according the Supreme Court of the United States. Nix v. Hedden decided on May 10, 1893 settled the issue and ruled that tomatoes are vegetables. This one of those cases that one wonders how it wound up in the high Court, but the history is revealing. Depending on whether tomatoes were legally considered fruits or vegetables made a big difference in the taxes that had to be paid on imported tomatoes. If tomatoes were fruits, no taxes were necessary. If they were vegetables, a ten percent tax based on their value was due to Uncle Sam.
The Supreme Court based its decision on what actually makes sense to every kid before they enter kindergarten, i.e., tomatoes look like vegetables, smell like vegetables, and taste like vegetables. Thus, they must be vegetables. The Court stated, “[b]otanically speaking, tomatoes are the fruit of a vine, just as are cucumbers, squashes, beans and peas. But in the common language [and sense] of the people … all [of] these are vegetables.” Unfortunately this meant that the Mr. Nix was not going to get a tax refund that year from Mr. Hedden, the Collector of the Port of New York.
Aside from this age old question of whether the tomato is a fruit or vegetable, this case illuminates a larger and very important principle – the plain meaning doctrine. As the Court noted in Nix, words “must receive their ordinary meaning.” Although people such as scientists, botanists, and the like have argued that tomatoes are technically fruits, this is no match for the common sense reality that tomatoes are really vegetables.
The plain meaning doctrine applies not only in tax related cases but in all types of cases, including patent cases. Thus a simple rule of thumb when claiming what a patent is – or trying to explain anything in life for that matter – is to stick with the ordinary and plain meaning words used in “common parlance,” as Justice Gray put it in the Nix opinion. After all, in this hyper technical world that we live in, sometimes it just makes sense to keep it simple and explain things so that a kindergartner can understand them.