It’s big guy vs. little guy

Re/Max says local agency’s logo too similar to its own

A dispute has erupted over a trademark request filed by Rehava Real Estate Store, a small agency in North Charleston.

Re/Max, a national real estate franchise, is challenging the agency’s filing, saying the Rehava name and logo design are too similar to its own.

Rehava said it sees little if any resemblance.

“When I first got this case, I went back and double-checked to make sure I had the right file because they don’t even look similar to me,” said Rehava attorney Doug Kim.

Adam Scoville, Re/Max’s legal counsel, said he can explain.

First of all, both names start with “r” and have logos with accent lines near the letter “e,” he said.

“It goes beyond that,” Scoville added. “If you chop the top off of the ‘h,’ you (almost) have the ‘m’ in Re/Max. The next letter is an ‘a,’ and if you take the ‘v’ then you have half of an ‘x.’ ”

Steve deGuzman, Rehava’s broker-in-charge, said he doesn’t buy it. He said the trademark challenge is harassment and a form of corporate bullying that will cost his firm thousands of dollars.

“It’s a huge distraction, particularly for a startup and also in this kind of a market,” deGuzman said.

He suspects the Colorado-based franchise is challenging the trademarkbecause of Rehava’s controversial commission rebates, which some in the industry see as a threat to traditional compensation standards.

Rehava’s commission structure stemmed from a 2006 change in state law that allowed real estate agents to offer rebates to home buyers.

The U.S. Justice Department has pushed for similar changes across the country.

Rehava promises to give back half of its commission to buyers at the closing table, which could result in a return of several thousand dollars.

“I think they did it because they’re worried about the future of real estate, and they really know that we might be onto something,” deGuzman said.

“Anything they could do to slow us down would be to their advantage.”

Scoville denies that their complaint has anything to do with Rehava’s business model.

“We don’t want someone offering the same services with a confusingly similar mark,” Scoville said. “We’re happy to compete with them, we just don’t want to do it with a trademark similar to Re/Max.”

Since Rehava opened last summer, it has received some nasty feedback, mostly from veteran agents who were not aware of the change in state law, deGuzman said.

One agent even filed a grievance against the company with the Charleston Trident Association of Realtors.

Rehava filed its trademark application last spring.

Officials at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office checked their records to make sure the Rehava name wasn’t too similar to existing trademark names, which they later determined it wasn’t.

Last fall the federal agency posted its findings, giving outsiders the opportunity to object before the trademark was finalized.

That’s when Re/Max filed its formal complaint.

The patent office’s trademark trial and appeal board will likely make a determination in the case in the spring of 2010.