Companies Trade Charges Over Newspaper Name : Trademark: Who has rights to Aliso Viejo News in its Page 1 nameplate is a bone of contention between Golden West Publishing Inc. and News & Review.

A pair of publishing companies are trading accusations of trademark infringement over the right to use the name Aliso Viejo News as their newspaper nameplates. Bill Thurman says his company established rights to the name in early October by publishing the inaugural issue of the Aliso Viejo News, a biweekly community newspaper.

But Golden West Publishing Inc., a long-established chain of South County weeklies owned by Freedom Newspapers Inc., which also publishes the Orange County Register, published its own weekly Aliso Viejo News on Oct. 31.

“We welcome the competition from Mr. Thurman or anyone else, but you can’t use someone else’s registered trademark, said Doug Hanes, publisher of eight South County weeklies operated by Golden West, including the Saddleback Valley News, the Laguna Beach News and the San Clemente News.

“This situation will definitely confuse the reader and will confuse the advertisers out there,” Hanes added.

Hanes said Golden West Publishing registered Aliso Viejo News as a federal trademark about two weeks ago.

But Thurman asserts that Golden West hurried its newspaper into publication after learning of Thurman’s plans to circulate his newspaper in the Aliso Viejo community.

“We feel that they panicked and they put it out overnight,” said Thurman, co-owner of News & Review, an electronic computer publication in Laguna Hills.

Hanes characterized Thurman’s first edition in October as a prototype developed primarily for advertising salespeople. Thurman’s first full-run edition appeared Nov. 5.

Aliso Viejo is a planned community of 15,000 being developed by the Mission Viejo Co.

About 48,000 people will be living in 20,000 homes in the development when construction is completed in 2005, say company representatives.

Wendy Wetzel, a Mission Viejo Co.

spokeswoman, said Thurman first asked her last summer about starting the newspaper. “He came to us first, I’ll say that for him,” she said. Wetzel said she approached Golden West three years ago with the idea of publishing a newspaper in Aliso Viejo. “They said they were looking to that in the future,” she said, “that they weren’t ready yet.”

Hanes conceded that Golden West “expedited” its plans after learning of Thurman’s venture. “We started working on the paper as soon as we heard there was going to be an infringement,” he said.

“He obviously had some time to plan this,” Hanes added. “Why didn’t he call it the Aliso Viejo Post or something?”

Thurman says he picked the name “because we wanted people in Aliso Viejo to get ‘the news.’ It never occurred to me that there were other newspapers in South County with a similar name.”

Both sides say they are considering legal action.