Nevada casino must change name after losing trademark lawsuit

A small neighborhood casino in Southern Nevada has been infringing on the trademarked name of a big Indian casino in Minnesota, a federal judge has ruled.

U.S. District Judge James Mahan in Las Vegas on Monday issued a permanent injunction requiring the Mystic Lodge casino in Henderson, a city near Las Vegas, to change its name and to stop using the "Mystic" name in its marketing material.

The Mystic Lodge was sued in January 2010 by the Mystic Lake Casino Hotel in Minnesota.

Other than their names and the fact they offer gambling, the two Mystic properties have little in common.

The Henderson property on Boulder Highway has fewer than 200 slot machines and no hotel. There's little reason for tourists to the Las Vegas area to visit the property.

The Minnesota property, owned by the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, has 600 hotel rooms, about 4,000 slot machines and 100 table games.

Attorneys for Templeton Gaming Corp. of Las Vegas, owner of the Mystic Lodge, argued in court briefs that no one would confuse the two properties or consider them to be under common ownership and that the tribe’s lawsuit represented unfair competition and anticompetitive conduct.

They said the two Mystic marks are confined to distinct and geographically separate markets, and there’s no evidence that the Minnesota tribe will expand to Nevada and use the Mystic name in Nevada, so the Minnesota tribe is not entitled to block the Henderson casino from using the Mystic name.

Mahan, however, found this analysis doesn’t apply because of "bad faith" shown by the owners of the Henderson property. They were well aware of the Minnesota casino and its name — dating to 1992 — when they adopted the Mystic Lodge name in 2007, Mahan's order said.

"Here, there is no question that the plaintiff owns a valid and protectable mark," Mahan wrote in his order.

"Congress has afforded 'nationwide protection to registered marks, regardless of the areas in which the registrant actually uses the mark,’ ” Mahan wrote, citing case law.

"The plaintiff argues that it operates a large resort-style casino in Minnesota, which, exactly like the defendants, contains slot machines and attracts customers from across Nevada. Additionally, the plaintiff maintains a player database that includes several thousand players residing in Nevada, with more than 100 concurrently listed in the defendants’ database," the order said. "The same customer willing to spend discretionary income gambling at one location may easily spend at another."

Mahan also found the word "Mystic" to be distinctive when it comes to casino services.

Mahan gave the Henderson property 60 days to stop using the Mystic name.

But on Tuesday, Templeton Gaming appealed Mahan’s ruling to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

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