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Thursday, Aug. 5, 2010 | 12:21 p.m.
New York City luxury mattress executive Andrea Mugnai received a bit of bad news Wednesday while showing off mattresses at the World Market Center in downtown Las Vegas: a trademark infringement lawsuit against his company filed by the Bellagio hotel-casino.
Mugnai, general manager of Italian company Magniflex's U.S. operations, was served with a suit claiming Magniflex has been selling Bellagio-branded mattresses and that such sales violate trademarks for the Bellagio hotel-casino in Las Vegas, which sells its own luxury mattresses.
Messages for comment on the suit were left with Magniflex.
MGM Resorts International's 3,933-room Bellagio resort, represented by attorneys with the Las Vegas office of the law firm Lewis and Roca LLP, says in the lawsuit that the Bellagio hotel-casino has been selling mattresses, pillows, towels and robes to consumers.
The mattresses are manufactured by Serta especially for Bellagio, which uses them in its hotel rooms. They can be purchased at a retail store in the Bellagio or through Bellagio's website, the lawsuit says.
Bellagio's lawsuit says it's also been in talks to license the Bellagio trademark for mattresses that would be sold in third-party retail locations throughout the United States.
Magniflex, in the meantime, has been selling its luxury retail mattresses through U.S. retail stores and markets its mattresses and pillows to designers and hotels, including offering private labeling for hotels, the lawsuit says.
"Magniflex touts to hotels that there is 'extraordinary revenue opportunity via sales to guests,"' the suit says.
Bellagio says in the lawsuit that in April, Magniflex offered for sale a Bellagio mattress at the Spring 2010 High Point Furniture Market in High Point, N.C.
The lawsuit says Magniflex this week also exhibited the Bellagio mattress at the World Market Center in Las Vegas, which through Friday is having its weeklong Las Vegas Market event for furniture industry sellers and buyers.
"Magniflex announced its Bellagio mattress long after Bellagio began selling mattresses and after Bellagio filed its trademark application for the Bellagio marks for mattresses," the lawsuit charges.
"Magniflex's use of the Bellagio mark for mattresses is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive as to the affiliation, connection, or association between Magniflex and Bellagio, or as to the origin, sponsorship, or approval of Magniflex's mattresses by Bellagio," the hotel-casino's lawsuit asserts.
Magniflex says it is one of Italy's and one of Europe's largest foam mattress manufacturers.
It has a plant in Prato, Italy, 6 miles from Florence. The Bellagio hotel-casino, which opened in October 1998 at a cost of $1.6 billion, overlooks a lake inspired by Northern Italy's Lake Como.
The suit seeks a court order blocking Magniflex from using the Bellagio trademark.
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Is Righthaven handling involved too?
Seems like a trend is evolving...
OMG..nothing better to do than sue this guy?
Well I can understand this one because that mattress company is selling them saying they are the mattresses in the Bellagio. It is part of the way they pitch the product using the name Bellagio and also saying that it is the same one used in the World Famous Bellagio Las Vegas. They have a case here for sure.
Welllll...
You know, the Belagio [the hotel, not the matterss] probably makes the lion's share of its income selling the mattress branded with the hotel's name. See how confusing it is? The only real solution is for the Belagio [the mattress manufacturer, not the hotel] to open a gambling hall.