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Claim to name a bad bet

The owner of the AmTrust trademark sues over its use.

By Scott Barancik
Published November 1, 2006

Dan Hicks won more than $115,000 at this year’s World Series of Poker. But a gamble he took on his Valrico mortgage company may not end so well.

Hicks, 34, formed AmTrust Funding Services in 2002. That didn’t endear him to Ohio Savings Bank, a Cleveland thrift that trademarked the name “AmTrust” in 1987 and formed a Boca Raton subsidiary, AmTrust Bank, in 1999. After multiple warnings, Ohio Savings filed suit in federal court in Tampa last week, demanding that Hicks’ company not only abandon the “AmTrust” name but pay related damages and legal fees it has borne.

“Defendants’ use of the AmTrust name … is intentionally calculated to trade upon the good will and reputation” of Ohio Savings, the lawsuit alleged, capitalize on its marketing efforts, and mislead consumers into believing the two companies are linked.

In an interview Tuesday, Hicks said he would not have adopted the “AmTrust” name in 2002 had he known it was trademarked. “They are probably in the right,” he said of Ohio Savings. But he also accused the much larger company — Ohio Savings has nearly $17-billion in assets and claims it is one of the country’s 20 largest savings and loans — of feeling “threatened by a little mom-and-pop store here in Florida.”

Gary Rosen, whose Fort Lauderdale law firm represents Ohio Savings, was unsympathetic.

Rosen said Ohio Savings had sent Hicks three cease-and-desist letters starting in August 2005 and never got a response. That was a mistake, he added. Unlike the subsequent lawsuit, the three letters demanded only a name change, not damages or attorneys’ fees.

“Foolhardy? Yes,” Rosen said. “But you’d be surprised how many people out there live by that philosophy. Some people don’t go to the dentist, either.”

The two parties have finally begun a dialogue. Hicks said he is considering a name change, though he guessed it would cost his company tens of thousands of dollars.

Thing might have gone differently if Hicks had approached the trademark dispute like he does poker. “When you’ve got a losing hand,” he told the St. Petersburg Times in August, “dump it right away.”

Scott Barancik can be reached at barancik@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8751.

[Last modified November 1, 2006, 06:53:24]