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A gem of a name: The jewelry company Cartier filed a lawsuit against Francis Brown, owner of Roanoke's Cartier Limousine, saying he has diluted the quality of its brand.
(Roanoke Times, The (Roanoke, VA) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Oct. 14--In one corner: The jewelry company Cartier, a 150-year-old subsidiary of the multibillion dollar Richemont group.
In the other: Francis Brown, 61, the owner and lone driver for Cartier Limousine and Airport Car Service, which he runs out of his beige two-story, vinyl-sided house in Northwest Roanoke.
A federal lawsuit filed last week has pitted Cartier, the self-described "preeminent global symbol of cosmopolitan fashion and prosperity," against Brown, who has to park his 1997 stretch limo dangerously close to granddaughter Kiki's basketball hoop.
Brown is accused of trademark infringement and diluting the quality of Cartier's brand. The international company wants Brown to change the name he has used for 20 years and to pay at least $125,000 in damages.
And Brown is not the only one who is allegedly sullying Cartier's image. Derrick Blaine of Cartier Limousine Inc. in Dallas has also been sued within the past month, as have Mouloud Bouchagour of Cartier Sedan Service in Denver and Ali Souissi of Cartier Limousine near Washington, D.C.
Cartier's New York attorney, Milton Springut, did not return calls for comment. Heather Polzin of Roanoke, who has also been retained to represent Cartier, said the company does not authorize its attorneys to speak to the media about open cases.
According to Brown, he never considered the jeweler's name when he decided what to call his service.
It was 1986, and he had just bought his first car, a white-on-white Cadillac Seville. He says someone told him the word "cartier" meant "man with a car" in French.
Although that isn't true, it sure sounded good to him. One of his mottoes had always been "have car, will travel."
Brown had been driving for a living since not long after he left the Air Force in the early 1960s. First he drove a metro bus, then a long-distance bus.
That made him realize how much he loved traveling, so he started Cartier Limousine. It has allowed him to support his wife, Velva, and their three children.
Over the years, Brown drove such big names as Kenny Rogers, Tina Turner and the Judds, he said. He has taken clients as far north as New York and as far south as Florida.
But he says things have changed since the early days. His fleet now consists of the limousine and two Lincoln Town Cars. The limo, which he says was once "the hottest thing in town," is getting some age and miles on it. Within the past four years, it has become harder for him to compete with companies that are updating their fleets with stretch sport utility vehicles or brand-new limos.
"The stretch hasn't moved in a little over a week," he said. "So what can you say? It isn't like my cars are ripping and running up and down the road all the time."
Mostly, he chauffeurs businessmen or older folks who don't like to drive anymore. At his age, he would like to retire in a couple of years and does not think he can afford to buy a brand new limousine, which could cost $60,000 to $100,000 or more.
Then, a couple of weeks ago, the lawsuit was served.
According to the complaint, Cartier sent warning letters to Brown before filing the complaint, but he says he never got such a letter.
He wants to know why, after 20 years, Cartier is coming after him now.
First, he said, he spells his business name differently. On his business cards, it says C'artier, with an apostrophe. But the apostrophe is not in the phone book or on his business license.
And if he wanted to capitalize on the jewelry company's name, he said, he would "get a great big ad and let it bounce off of the page at you."
Derrick Blaine, the Texas limousine driver who is also being sued by Cartier, can sympathize with Brown. He said he bought Cartier Limousine Inc. in March from a woman who had operated it under that name in Dallas for 15 years.
Neither he nor Brown understands what limousines have to do with jewelry.
"If I was selling jewelry and I was going to use the name Cartier, I could understand why they would want to take me to court," Blaine said. "But this is completely different."
According to the lawsuit, Cartier is known for watches, jewelry, leather goods, stationery, glassware, eyewear and many more high-end items. Its only foray into the automobile business was licensure of its trademark for use in luxury car interiors.
In fact, Brown's 1999 Lincoln is a Cartier edition. He thought it was neat that the word "Cartier" was on the door handles. The word does not appear on any of his other cars or their license plates.
University of Virginia law professor Chris Sprigman said the fact that Brown's and Blaine's companies have been in business for so long could be a defense. But they would have to prove that the plaintiff already knew or should have known about the alleged infringement but had done nothing about it.
Sprigman said he thinks it could be tough for Cartier to prove that Brown's use of the name confused customers in the Roanoke area because there isn't a Cartier boutique anywhere near here.
"Most people living in that community don't associate Cartier with anything," he said.
Even though it could be a challenging case for Cartier to litigate, Sprigman said, the reality is that it may never make it to trial.
"The hard and somewhat depressing answer is that people lack the means to defend themselves," he said. "So for this guy to vindicate what he thinks are his rights is going to be beyond his means."
Brown, who thinks changing the name could cost him a lot of money and time, is still looking for an attorney. Meanwhile, he said, he'll try to soothe his worried family and keep answering the telephone the same way he always has:
"Distinctively unique -- Cartier Limousine and Airport Car Service."
Copyright (c) 2006, The Roanoke Times, Va.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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