Tug of War Over Malibu Pier’s Name

It may take peer pressure to save Malibu Pier’s good name.

Two men are claiming ownership of the name “Malibu Pier” -- and both are looking to the public to back them up.

Jefferson Wagner is a Malibu surf shop owner picked by California parks officials to operate the state-owned landmark. When a $6-million pier renovation project is finished, he will oversee new restaurants and recreation concessions there.

Stephen Harper is an Agoura Hills business-development specialist who holds the “Malibu Pier” Internet domain and has also staked a claim to a federal trademark on the name.

In an apparent lapse, the state never registered the name when it acquired the pier 24 years ago in order to preserve the then-crumbling structure.

Harper noticed this lapse, and last year filed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for exclusive use of “Malibu Pier” -- just as Wagner signed on to run it for the state.

Harper asserts that neither Wagner nor the state can refer to the 720-foot wooden structure as “Malibu Pier” without his permission. Moreover, he contends that he controls use of the name on T-shirts, swimsuits, beach umbrellas -- even the neon Malibu Pier sign.

After a lengthy process that will include public comment, the patent office will decide who gets the name.

Wagner, 51, says it will be impossible to operate the 100-year-old landmark without using the name that already has worldwide recognition.

Those who love the pier should be outraged at the dispute, Wagner says. “This is a public asset. People should be upset that someone is trying to poach it.”

But Harper, 54, argues that he and Wagner should team up to generate needed revenue for the pier. “People want this open. Twenty years of selling bait and burgers isn’t going to pay for this pier.”

Since learning about Harper’s “Malibu Pier” trademark application, state parks officials have scrambled to map out a legal strategy to defend the name.

They hired John O’Banion, a prominent Sacramento attorney who specializes in intellectual-property issues, to file a counter-application with federal trademark officials. O’Banion also hastily applied to trademark the name “Malibu Sport Fishing Pier,” and he registered both names with the California secretary of state’s office.

O’Banion says the move will prevent Harper from selling “Malibu Pier” clothing and souvenirs in California, but does not block him from selling them out of state through the Internet.

Harper says it was the Internet that got him interested in “Malibu Pier” branding six years ago. His idea was to create a website devoted to pier-themed merchandise.

“At that time the pier was derelict and storm-damaged. I was starting a ‘cyber pier,’ one where I wouldn’t have to worry about El Nino weather,” he says. “The pier had such a romantic history. What aspect of Malibu would get the most global attention? Besides the surf and sand, it was the Malibu Pier.”

Harper, who says he lived on Carbon Beach 20 years ago, sees the venture as potentially lucrative. “I used to live in Malibu. I’m trying to make enough money to move back.”

Wagner, known as “Zuma Jay” to customers of the surf shop bearing that name, learned of Harper’s activity last year shortly after agreeing with parks officials to operate the pier for 20 years. He and his partners will pay the state $250,000 a year, plus a percentage of retail sales and a $100,000 yearly contribution to a pier maintenance fund.

He was surfing the Internet in preparation for setting up a pier website when he came upon Harper’s “Malibu Pier,” Wagner says. When he contacted Harper, “he presented me with a demand,” he says.

Harper proposed becoming a part of Wagner’s partnership.

“It was all laid out to the Malibu Pier partners. I said, ‘Guys, we can do a lot better working together,’ ” Harper said. “I think it’s a big pie and there’s enough for everybody.”

Wagner and his partners disagreed. They were puzzled: Pier lease documents presented to them by the state clearly suggested that parks administrators had already registered the “Malibu Pier” name. In fact, tiny “TM” letters were printed next to the words “Malibu Pier” in several places.

But Harper found that was not the case. He had filed with federal officials for the “Malibu Pier” trademark last Sept. 5. Eighteen days later, O’Banion filed for the “Malibu Pier” trademark on behalf of the state parks department.

While trademark law is complex, the fact that Harper was the first to claim the name could give him an advantage.

“I think the state erred in its patent search. I think they’re aware of it, but I’m not making a big issue of it. But it’s holding us up. Without the trademark, I can’t even sell T-shirts here,” Wagner says.

The name dispute is delaying the subleasing of restaurant space on the refurbished pier and the deployment of sport-fishing boats at its ocean end. Eventually, Wagner plans to have a high-end restaurant at the front of the pier where Alice’s Restaurant once stood and a more casual, lower-priced cafe at the ocean end.

Los Angeles County lifeguards and the Baywatch patrol boat also will be stationed at the pier. Wagner will operate a surf shop, and there will be beach equipment, kayak rentals and a surfing museum.

While he waits to start collecting rent and selling merchandise, Wagner spends a few hours daily painting handrails, picking up cigarette butts left by visitors with partial access to the pier, and cleaning sand from restroom sinks.

“People come in and wash their feet off. But we’re on a septic system and sand wrecks its grinders,” Wagner says. His do-it-yourself work will “help keep the price of hamburgers down” when the pier fully opens, he adds.

That will probably be next year. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office said that it usually takes about 18 months to review and approve or reject trademark requests. Parks officials, in the meantime, say they will repair several recently damaged pier pilings.

Malibu-area parks chief Hayden Sohm says the state’s stewardship of the pier for two decades should make clear that the parks agency holds the “intellectual rights” to its name.

“It doesn’t seem right that somebody else should piggyback off our work to make a buck,” he says.

For his part, Harper bristles at Wagner’s characterization of him.

“I got there first and I’m a ‘poacher’? They don’t seem to get that I have the trademark and they don’t,” he says.

“That’s why they hand out numbers at delicatessens. To keep things in order.”