Rucci back in a courtroom on trademark case for Hotel California


By ROBERT CONNELLY

rconnelly@vindy.com

AKRON

Businessman Sebastian Rucci was in court Wednesday on a restraining order related to allegations of trademark infringement against him for the name of his latest venture, Hotel California.

Rucci, his lawyers and lawyers representing Richard A. Butler III of California-based Ocean Avenue Properties were in front of Judge John R. Adams in U.S. District Court Northern District of Ohio.

The complaint from Ocean Avenue Properties details how it started a hotel in Santa Monica, Calif., in 1997 and named it Hotel California — a name also popularized in song by the band The Eagles.

Judge Adams did not make a ruling on a temporary restraining order Wednesday but is expected to make a ruling in a few days, said John Little, a clerk. “Regardless of how the judge handles the temporary-restraining- order request, he would set a date for a preliminary injunction hearing ... no more than two weeks after” this decision, Little said.

Rucci had filed an opposition to the temporary restraining order and a motion to dismiss Wednesday morning, and both of those will be looked at by the judge after he first rules on the restraining order.

The complaint alleges trademark infringement, trademark counterfeiting and violation of the Ohio Deceptive Trade Practices Act and no less than a $500,000 award to be determined at a trial.

Ocean Avenue also recently has begun to franchise and license its brand in California, including San Francisco, and Butler filed a trademark for the hotel name with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Sept. 19, 1996, the complaint says.

Butler received the registration on the principal register for his trademark July 8, 1997. Years later, on April 6, 2004, Butler received registration for the trademark The Hotel California “for ‘Hotel, motel and furnished lodging services,’” the complaint said.

The complaint also details Rucci’s past with the Go Go Girls Cabaret at the same site as Hotel California.

Ocean Avenue sent Rucci a cease-and-desist letter July 14 this year, and another one Oct. 8. Ocean Avenue said there was no response to either.

Rucci filed an application for trademark of Hotel California to the USPTO on Sept. 21. Three days later, he submitted another application for the trademark Hotel Cali, also to the USPTO. On those applications, Rucci signed a statement saying that, to his knowledge, no other person had a trademark on those two hotel names.

Then, on Oct. 6, there was a trademark and service mark application filed to the Ohio secretary of state for the mark “Hotel California” and in that, Rucci said he was the owner of the mark and that no one else in the country had the mark.

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