Wednesday, June 15, 2005 | 10:53 a.m.
The Las Vegas Centennial Celebration Committee's top administrator is having the group's copyright and trademark attorneys look into unlicensed souvenir license plates that have been for sale at local gift shops and which she says appear to be too similar to the official centennial license plates.
The centennial committee sells souvenir plates as part of its fundraising effort, but has only done so in response to individual requests and has not provided any for commercial sale. Those plates are identical to the popular centennial plates available to motorists, except the raised letters and numbers are red on the souvenir plates and black on the regular license plates. Both are made by the state, and the official souvenir plates are only available through the committee.
The owner of the company that was making and selling its own version of the souvenir plates to local gift shops said he hasn't done anything wrong, and added that his plates are different anyway.
"I'm doing it a little bit different than the original one," said Alex, the owner of Phoenician Enterprises. He refused to give his full name.
The two versions of the souvenir plates have the same wording, font and coloring on most of the plates. The difference is on the left side where there is a picture of the "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada" sign. The signs look slightly different and the pictures behind the signs, although both of Las Vegas at night, are of different views of the city.
"The picture is not the same," Alex said. "Mine is an original picture."
Despite the difference, committee Executive Director Stacy Allsbrook said the unauthorized plates are "an obvious copy" of the official souvenir plates.
"We're going to see about having it stopped," Allsbrook said. The centennial license plates are a primary source of money for the committee, and Allsbrook said no one is supposed to make money off the centennial except them.
"The centennial's for everybody, not for one company to make money off of," she said.
Alex wouldn't say exactly how well his plates have sold, but said that he had hundreds of plates made and that they have not been as popular as he originally thought.
Two local gift shop managers said that while the souvenir plates haven't rivaled the T-shirts and shot glasses in sales, they have been popular.
"The most popular are the ones that say 'WINNER' or something else gambling related," said Angie Hurt, who works at Bonanza Gifts, the World's Largest Gift Shop, at Las Vegas Boulevard South and Sahara Avenue. The store was out of its stock of plates on Monday.
The centennial committee has a copyright on the license plate, and a trademark for the line "Las Vegas Centennial 1905-2005" that appears along the bottom of both plates.
Lauri Thompson, an attorney who works with the committee on trademark and copyright issues, hasn't taken a close look at the unauthorized plates yet, and declined to say whether she thought they crossed the legal line.
The test, she said, will be whether the two souvenir plates are substantially similar, and whether the public is likely to be confused about who produced the unauthorized plates.
Thompson said if they decide there is a problem with the unauthorized plates, the committee would send a letter to the stores and distributor telling them to stop selling the plates, and could decide to go to court to try to have the merchandise seized and have a judge award the committee any profits from the sale of the merchandise.
Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, who is also chairman of the centennial committee, said it appears there may be a problem with the unauthorized plates.
"Like everything else everyone tries to take advantage," Goodman said.
Las Vegas City Councilman Gary Reese, who is also vice chairman of the committee, said the group anticipated someone trying to copy their merchandise, and that's why it sought the trademark and copyright in the first place.
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