O.C. POG Rivals Say Pretrial Deal Is a Win-Win : Courts: Huntington Beach-based association will become Universal Slammers in marketing the children’s game.

It was touted as the “Pog Wars of ’94.”

But on Tuesday, two Orange County companies battling over use of the name of the popular children’s game announced an amicable end to a high-stakes courtroom contest that had been set for trial next week.

In a settlement effective this week, Universal Pogs Assn. agreed to a permanent order barring the company from using the World POG Federation’s “POG” trademark, alone or in combination with other words. The Huntington Beach-based association will now change its name to Universal Slammers Inc.

Other terms of the settlement, which both sides said frees them to focus on the coming holiday season, were not disclosed.

“Looking at all the factors and everything that was going on, it was in the best interest of both sides that a compromise was reached,” said Robert Rosenstein, an attorney representing Universal, which had argued that “pog” was generic. “It was time to get on with business.”

Attorney Michael Eidel, who represented World POG Federation, added: “It’s in everybody’s best interests.”

The legal dispute between the companies began in July and was being watched closely by other manufacturers and retailers in the fast-growing multimillion-dollar industry behind the game, played by children with decorated plastic and cardboard caps, similar to the flat circles once used to seal glass milk bottles.

Rules vary, but players generally hurl a heavier plastic disc, known as a “slammer,” onto a stack of the cardboard caps, trying to flip the cardboard caps over by hitting them. Children also collect the caps, decorated with various designs and logos.

Universal had sued Costa Mesa-based World POG Federation, disputing the federation’s claim to exclusive rights to the word POG . Universal also had argued that Hawaiian schoolchildren had named the game years ago and that the P-word had been used for so long and so widely as to make it generic.

Attorneys for Costa Mesa-based World POG Federation, however, maintained that the company holds the legal rights to the name through a partnership with the Hawaiian Haleakala Dairy, which coined POG for its passion fruit, orange and guava juice. World POG Federation countersued and won a temporary order in August preventing Universal from using Pog on its products or in its business dealings.

The federation has said the generic description for the game is milk caps, and described the flap as being similar to past challenges over trademarks such as Coke, Kleenex, Q-Tips and Scrabble.

Alan Rypinski, president of World POG Federation, and Joe Kaufenberg Sr., president of the new Universal Slammers, said in a joint statement Tuesday that they were “satisfied with the resolution of the case.”

Rypinski said World POG Federation is doing business in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, England and Israel with an expanding market in the United States.