Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2005 | 11:08 a.m.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, which promotes Southern Nevada as a tourist destination, would retain ownership of its trademarked slogans if recommendations made Tuesday are adopted by the LVCVA board.
That recommendation and another one that would give the board power to hire and fire the authority's general counsel were the key recommendations made by four board members who met as a special committee.
The recommendations from the special committee, headed by LVCVA board chairman and Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, also covered Convention Authority policies having to do with property acquisition and disposal, procurement of goods and services, public works projects and conflicts of interest.
The full 14-member LVCVA board will consider the recommendations at its regularly scheduled meeting next at the convention center. That meeting, which begins at 9 a.m., will include an opportunity for public input.
The special committee will then meet again on Oct. 6 to consider the input of the full board and the public. The full board is expected to ratify the final recommendations on Oct. 11.
The LVCVA's decision to review its intellectual property policies and other functions of the authority came after the Sun reported earlier this year on a secret agreement in which the rights to the popular slogan, "What happens here, stays here," were transferred by LVCVA President Rossi Ralenkotter to the authority's Las Vegas advertising agency, R&R Partners Inc.
Even though Ralenkotter has said the agreement was made to help R&R Partners defend the slogan in a trademark infringement lawsuit against a California clothier, a law firm hired by the LVCVA recommended that the authority retain all of its own trademarks in the future.
The international law firm Morrison & Foerster has already billed the LVCVA nearly $118,000 through July 31 for its review of the authority's policies and its representation of the LVCVA in the lawsuit, according to authority general counsel Luke Puschnig.
The special committee on Tuesday agreed with the law firm's recommendation that the LVCVA retain its own trademarks. Goodman expressed concern that the federal lawsuit, which the LVCVA has joined as a plaintiff, could wind up costing the tax-supported authority hundreds of thousands of dollars.
"I think we need to make a decision as a board whether we want to protect the marks," Goodman said.
Zane Gresham, a partner at Morrison & Foerster, said there are two sides to the issue.
On one hand, Gresham said, it could be advantageous for the authority to allow others to use LVCVA trademarks if it spreads goodwill. He cited the mention of the "What happens here" slogan by the likes of entertainers Jay Leno and Billy Crystal on nationally televised broadcasts as examples of that.
But Gresham said the authority may choose to litigate if it believes the trademarks are being abused by others.
"If it's used in commerce in a way that adversely affects the image of the mark," Gresham said, it may be something the board would want to defend.
The special committee also recommended that the board, not the authority's president, have the power to hire and fire the authority's general counsel, although the counsel would still report on a daily basis to Ralenkotter.
The reasoning behind this recommendation is to establish some independence for the legal counsel, a position now held by Puschnig, from the office of the president, now held by Ralenkotter.
Most of the other recommendations were housekeeping in nature, but determined to be necessary because many of the LVCVA's standard practices have never been put in writing. For instance, the special committee recommended that the board retain its current policy of approving any purchase of personal property involving an expenditure of at least $50,000.
The committee also recommended that the board vote on proposed change orders for public works projects when the amount of the change orders exceed that which was budgeted under contingency costs.
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