Ruffin denies Advent accusations on San Francisco-themed resort

Grace Leong

Wednesday, March 29, 2000 | 11:03 a.m.

New Frontier owner Phil Ruffin denied casino designer Mark Advent's accusations that Ruffin stole his idea to build a San Francisco-themed resort on the Las Vegas Strip, saying a San Francisco-themed resort concept is in the public domain.

The legal battle between Ruffin and Advent -- who alleged he had been working with Ruffin and his aide, Craig Dudley, for more than two years with the intent of creating a San Francisco-themed resort-casino through a joint venture -- began in January over ownership of the concept's rights.

On Jan. 3, Ruffin announced plans to implode the New Frontier and replace it with the $750 million, San Francisco-themed "City by the Bay." Ruffin sued Advent a week later after Advent publicly threatened to sue over the concept. Advent countersued on March 7.

In a response filed in U.S. District Court on Monday to Advent's March 7 lawsuit, Ruffin said the idea of a San Francisco-themed hotel-casino isn't protected by intellectual property law and is unenforceable because it has been in public domain for a number of years as evidenced by the Golden Gate hotel-casino in downtown Las Vegas.

Advent, in his March 7 claim, demanded more than $900 million in damages from Ruffin, whom he accused of breaking repeated verbal assurances to not move forward with the project unless he agreed to a joint venture with Advent or to develop an entirely different themed resort. In his response, Ruffin denied making any promises of confidentiality to Advent.

Advent disputed Ruffin's claims to the copyrights, saying he was defrauded by Ruffin, who allegedly stole his ideas after failing to buy the copyrights from Advent and after seeing the success of other city-themed hotel-casinos such as Paris and New York-New York, another of Advent's concepts.

"The Golden Gate hotel is a box. It has nothing to do with San Francisco. You can't hide behind intellectual property rights technicalities to justify wrongdoings and thievery," Advent said. "If I had never met Ruffin, never shared proprietary information with him, then I won't have a case against him if he decided to build a San-Francisco themed resort-casino."

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