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Condo board claims conflict with trademark records
22-Jan-09 – Claims by Marina Towers Condominium Association that it owns the name “Marina City,” which were the basis for condo board fines against the editor and sponsor of Marina City Online, appear to be debunked by trademark records with the Illinois Secretary of State. Furthermore, the president of LaSalle Hotel Properties, owner of Hotel Sax and adjacent commercial property at Marina City, has told Marina City Online that his company owns the trademark of Marina City. In a December 23 letter to Steven Dahlman, the editor of MCO who rents a condo unit from Michael Michalak, a Realtor who is MCO’s only sponsor, MTCA attorney Ellis Levin claimed ownership of the name Marina City. Because Marina City Online had not obtained permission from the condo board to use the words “Marina City” in its web site about Marina City, Levin said the two residents would be fined $1,000 each, plus attorney fees, plus $50 per day starting on January 13. Wrote Levin, “The Board of Directors of Marina Towers Condominium Association owns and controls the use of the name ‘Marina City,’ the names of its official publication including ‘Marina City News,’ and the image of the two towers under applicable state and federal trademark law.” However, an online search of trademark and service mark registrations with the Illinois Secretary of State shows “Marina City” is still registered to the previous owner of what is now Hotel Sax. In 2002, Marina City Hotel Enterprises, LLC, registered the words “Marina City” and the design in which lowercase letters appear to be floating on waves. In 2006, the company sold its House of Blues Hotel, and adjacent commercial property, to LaSalle Hotel Properties. According to Secretary of State records, there was a voluntary dissolution of the LLC on March 27, 2008. The limited liability company was established on January 15, 1997. The service marks do not expire until 2012.
“MCHE owns the trademark to Marina City,” says Michael D. Barnello, president and chief operating officer of LaSalle Hotel Properties, based in Bethesda, Maryland. “At the sale, they assigned all of their trademark rights to us.” Barnello says LaSalle is in the process of transferring the trademark registrations. The service marks were registered under three descriptions – real estate development services, marina services, and leasing of real estate/real estate management services. According to state records, the service marks were first used on December 15, 2000, and registered on November 4, 2002. Marina City Online recently registered the name of its web site as a service mark. Classified as an “information website” by the Secretary of State, the service mark will expire in 2014. The claim by MTCA that it owns the image of "the two towers" under trademark law conflicts with a 1998 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit that the design of a building does not serve as an effective trademark. No state or federal trademarks are registered to Marina Towers Condominium Association. MTCA has said it has a “common law copyright,” a claim that is widely disputed by lawyers and experts on intellectual property.
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