Wow. Ryan Gile at the Las Vegas Trademark Attorney has written a 3,700 word tome, with diagrams, on the convoluted and complicated (an understatement) ownership interest in the trademark “Tropicana” for hotels. I can’t begin to imagine how long it took to write it, much less understand all the transactions before being able to write about it. I agree with his conclusion on the whole matter, though:
| While Tropicana LV’s claim of ownership to the Tropicana Trademarks by virtue of this conditional assignment right/reversionary interest is an interesting one, this latest attempt to lay claim to the ownership rights is more likely just a means for Tropicana LV to bolster its bargaining position in order to get the relief that it ultimately wants – basically, the ability to continue to use the name Tropicana for the Tropicana Las Vegas without having to pay a license fee. Of course, the fact that Tropicana LV might actually be able to stake a claim of ownership over assets that had an appraised value of approximately $200 million in 2007 could also have something to do with it. |
It’s a must-read for transactional attorneys. What’s interesting here is that at various times there appeared to be very sophisticated efforts to deal with the trademark ownership, which in my several years of blogging is quite rare (generally no one thinks about it until it’s too late, which is why there’s a case about it). It still went south, though, really because of one forgotten agreement.
By the way Ryan, I thought it was messy long before “Here is where the situation starts to gets messy.”
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