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Hotel California name use ban sought
Federal judge asked to block opening of Austintown hotel
AKRON
In its lawsuit alleging trademark infringement, a California-based hotel operator is asking a federal judge to block the imminent opening of Sebastian Rucci’s Austintown hotel under the name “Hotel California.”
“Defendants should not be permitted to open and operate a hotel that will capitalize on, and harm, plaintiffs’ trademark rights,” according to a Monday court filing by Richard A. Butler III and Ocean Avenue Properties LLC.
Butler and Ocean Avenue say they have the right to the Hotel California trademark, and they have proposed that U.S. District Court Judge John R. Adams issue a preliminary injunction barring Rucci’s hotel from using that name while the lawsuit is pending.
A law clerk for Judge Adams said he expects the judge will rule this month on the preliminary matter linked to the hotel’s opening, but not on the merits of the trademark-infringement complaint.
Monday’s filing asks Judge Adams to “take judicial notice” of the announced opening of Rucci’s 102-room hotel, as demonstrated by a March 21 Vindicator story, in which Rucci said his hotel would open within 10 days.
Rucci said Wednesday that he is “within two or three weeks” of opening his hotel.
“The opening and patronization of the ‘knock-off’ hotel in Austintown will only cause irreparable harm to the trademark holders’ rights,” this week’s filing by the plaintiffs said.
“Plaintiffs have spent over 17 years developing goodwill, customer relationships and a solid reputation in the hotel industry,” the document said.
The lawsuit, filed last year against Rucci’s hotel venture, said Ocean Avenue acquired a Santa Monica, Calif., hotel in 1997 and named it Hotel California — a name popularized in song during the 1970s by The Eagles band.
Butler received a registration of the trademark for the hotel name with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 1997; and Ocean Avenue has recently begun to franchise and license the brand, the lawsuit said.
“It’s a joke. I don’t worry about them anymore. They’re irrelevant,” Rucci said of the California plaintiffs’ latest filing.
If Judge Adams bars him from opening under the name Hotel California, Rucci said he has alternative names under which he can operate the hotel, if necessary.
In the written answer to the lawsuit, which he filed earlier this month, Rucci said a Google search under the name Hotel California produces “countless results,” including hotels bearing that name throughout the nation and the world.
The trademark “is generic and unenforceable,” Rucci added.
To win a trademark infringement complaint, the plaintiffs must show that there is a likelihood of public confusion between establishments bearing the same name, Rucci said.
Confusion is unlikely when the hotels are 2,500 miles apart, as is the case in this complaint, he said. “I will win this case,” he predicted.
Rucci received last week an occupancy permit for the hotel, restaurant, nightclub and outside patio; and he said he has already hired staff for the multi-million dollar hotel on the state Route 46 racino corridor.
The Ohio Division of Liquor Control rejected the hotel’s liquor permit application in February; and Rucci said he plans to open the hotel without a liquor permit.
The Fifth Season, which operates a Mineral Ridge banquet center, will operate the hotel’s restaurant.