Village officials
have sued Pinehurst Inc., which owns the Pinehurst Resort and Country Club,
over control of the prestigious name shared by the resort and village.
"Basically the simple
issue is that a geographically descriptive term like ... Pinehurst should
not be subject to ownership," village attorney John Clayton said today.
The village filed
a federal civil lawsuit Thursday in Greensboro after officials determined
the golf resort, which was the site of the U.S. Open in June, would not
ease its determination to enforce its trademarked name, Pinehurst Mayor
Virginia Fallon said.
Owners of the country
club successfully pressured an interior decorator and assisted living center
to drop Pinehurst from its name and also pursued a tanning salon and real
estate agency.
"We're asking that
Pinehurst be recognized as a geographic location and as a geographic location
it is not trademarkable," Fallon said. "It belongs to the people. It's
our name.
"We don't want to
have a company town where they own everything and control everything."
Named as defendants
in the lawsuit were Pinehurst Inc., which owns the golf club, and its Dallas-based
parent companies Clubcorp Inc and Clubcorp Resorts Inc.
The company has a
federally protected trademark that it said gives it exclusive rights to
the name.
"The case appears
to be completely without merit as these claims filed by the village council
have already been dismissed by two federal courts," Pinehurst Inc. executive
vice president Beth Kocher said.
The village contends
it was founded in 1895 and given the Pinehurst name by property owner James
Walker Tufts, who built a nine-hole golf course in 1898. Tufts hired Donald
Ross in the early 1900s to design the resort's golf course No. 2, where
the U.S. Open was played.
In July, the village
council sought a written guarantee from Pinehurst Inc. that it will not
force any business to cut Pinehurst from its name unless the business is
a direct competitor.
The request came
a week after the country club's owners took out a full-page advertisement
in a local newspaper apologizing for the way it has tried to protect its
trademark on the village name.
Pinehurst Inc. said
in the ad it would not challenge any existing business within the village
limits using Pinehurst in its name except for one rival golf course development.
