Braving the Cup’s Tempest for Right to Sell Teapots
Gentlemen, start your attorneys.
The battle over the America’s Cup is headed back to its natural venue: court.
At 10 a.m. today, attorneys for Sail America Foundation will ask for a federal court order blocking the Pacific Beach-based America’s Cup Club from selling T-shirts, jackets, pens, socks and other souvenirs using the name America’s Cup and the distinctive sailboat logo.
Other would-be entrepreneurs, after receiving letters from Sail America with words like trademark and copyright infringement and treble damages, have folded up or have been willing to compromise.
But Don R. Parisette, president and founder of the America’s Cup Club, is ready to fight. He thinks Sail America, which is managing the San Diego Yacht Club’s defense of the Cup, is being greedy, and he disputes its claim to a name that dates to the 19th Century.
“There is no limit to Sail America’s deception and greed,” Parisette said. “They’ve been intimidating waterfront businesses from handling my stuff and somebody has to stand up to them. They don’t own the America’s Cup.”
Sail America, protecting a multimillion-dollar commodity, will be out in force.
“Most people who infringe the trademark do it without knowing any better,” said Sail America spokesman Tom Mitchell. “This case is more severe.”
If It Had Been Pintos?
Maybe it didn’t rival the car chase from “The French Connection,” but it was hot stuff for Del Mar: his and hers Mercedeses zipping along local streets after a dispute about who scratched whose car in the parking lot outside the post office.
If you believe him, she banged the door of his 1986 Mercedes, refused to take responsibility, then drove away cool as you please in her 1979 Mercedes.
If you believe her, he lost his cool over a small scratch and then took his keys and dug a 4-inch groove in her door.
He then allegedly followed her on a winding chase along Camino del Mar, Carmel Valley Road, Interstate 5, Via de la Valle, and finally Jimmy Durante Boulevard, cursing and threatening mayhem.
She escaped only by taking refuge behind the Del Mar fire station on the fairgrounds, where firefighters called the Sheriff’s Department. While the 61-year-old woman waited for the deputies, firefighters said, they saw a late-model blue Mercedes make two passes by the station.
Sheriff’s Detective Janet Ryzdynski tracked down the other car’s owner: a 45-year-old Del Mar man with an office in Mission Valley.
After a week of hiding and indecision, the woman decided not to press charges but retained the right to sue in small claims court.
To Ryzdynski, the Great Del Mar Mercedes Chase shows anew that nothing gets people angrier than a perceived insult to their automobile. And that the upscale are just as likely to get rowdy as anybody else.
“It probably happens faster in Del Mar than in Vista,” she said.
He Didn’t Come Up Short
There’s always a local angle.
When the Olympic torch arrives in Chon Ju, South Korea, the first runner carrying the flame on its way to open the Olympic Games will be Leon Sinder, head of the school of international and intercultural studies at United States International University in San Diego.
Sinder’s ties to Korea date to 1937; he worked in a rural training program for UNESCO, lectured at Korean universities, was an adviser to the Korean government, and headed an archeological dig.
A native of Romania, Sinder, 66, says his interest in villages rather than cities, and his short stature, endeared him to the Koreans during his extended stay in the 1960s.
“Most Americans the Koreans came in contact with were big,” he explains. “I was the little guy who appreciated their art and culture.”
Eliminating Guesswork
Travel abroad is said to be enriching, so four community college districts in San Diego County have banded together to allow their students to spend a semester at the University of London.
But not before high-ranking officials from all four districts have checked out the accommodations. Expenses are underwritten by the individual districts and the American Institute for Foreign Study, which oversees the program.
Making the trip earlier this year were George Boggs, superintendent-president of the Palomar district; Ivan Jones, president of Grossmont Community College, and Julie Hatoff, vice president at MiraCosta.
Joseph Conte, who is superintendent-president of the Southwestern district in Chula Vista, is set to make his visit Nov. 17-26.
“This is not a boondoggle,” said Ron Koehn, senior vice president of AIFS. “This is a working trip.”
If all goes well, the four districts will send as many as 60 students and three instructors a semester, starting in fall 1989.
Conte, who once headed the foreign study program at the University of La Verne in Los Angeles County, wants to make sure the housing and library are adequate. “I want to make sure the quality is there,” he said.
