Roxy, Roxywear Dispute Heads Back to Court
Everybody gets their day in court. But when it comes to the companies squabbling over the use of the Roxy name in their labels, they could be getting weeks more in court as the dispute veers toward a second trial.
For five years, Quiksilver Inc., the corporate giant that makes surfwear, and tiny Kymsta Corp., maker of juniorswear and contemporary clothing, have been going at it mano a mano over the right to use the word “Roxy” in their apparel lines. Kymsta makes a juniors line called Roxywear, and Quiksilver has a line called Roxy.
The brouhaha started in 2002 when Quiksilver legally challenged Kymsta’s use of the label. Two years later, a ruling by U.S.
District Court Judge Dickran Tevrizian stated that Quiksilver had waited too long to bring the brand dispute to court, because both companies launched their labels in the early 1990s. He ruled the two labels could exist together. However, certain restrictions were placed on Kymsta’s use of the Roxywear name, stifling any major financial expansion the small Los Angeles company could make with the name.
Months after the 2004 decision, Kymsta appealed Tevrizian’s ruling to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, stating that the trial should have been decided by a jury instead of a judge.
Last October, a three-judge appeals-court panel agreed with Kymsta and returned the matter to Tevrizian’s courtroom.
But Quiksilver, a $1.8 billion company based in Huntington Beach, Calif., quickly challenged the decision, asking for a full “en banc” panel of 15 judges to review the threejudge panel’s decision. In December, the appeals court denied Quiksilver’s motion.
Now it looks like the whole issue might be headed to court unless a settlement is made. A status conference on the issue is scheduled before Tevrizian on Jan. 22, said Kymsta’s attorney, James D. Nguyen, to decide what to do next. A second trial is a distinct possibility.
“It would be nice if we could make a deal,” said Art Pereira, who owns the $4 million company with his wife, designer Roxanne Heptner. “But it doesn’t seem to be going that way.” —Deborah Belgum
