Bistro sues over restaurant name

That's not amore. Italian Bistro filed suit against Boccie Restaurants in District Court last Wednesday as a pre-emptive strike in a continuing trademark controversy about the two restaurants' names. Italian Bistro of Center City Inc., owner of the restaurant at 34th and Walnut streets, is suing the Boccie Restaurants corporation over the trademark rights of the name Boccie because of another restaurant owned by Italian Bistro, Baci Bistro on South Broad Street. Although Boccie -- at 4040 Locust Street -- was established before Baci, Italian Bistro has filed suit in anticipation of a suit by Boccie over the use of the similar-sounding name. "We have had negotiations with the owner of Boccie, and we reached an impasse," said Alex Murland, attorney for Italian Bistro. "We didn't object to the similar sounding names, they did." "It was either sue them or wait until we were sued," Murland said. According to the complaint, Baci Bistro "has continuously used its name and mark of Baci Bistro since its first use in commerce on approximately November 1, 1991." The suit, the complaint says, "is for a declaration that the plaintiff's use of its service mark Baci Bistro does not . . . infringe [Boccie's] alleged rights through prior use of the term Boccie for its student oriented pizza services." Boccie Attorney Bonnie Kissler said that in a case such as this one, a preemptive strike is not uncommon. "It's a very common strategy when a suit appears to be imminent," Kissler said. "One side may very well decide to make the first strike." Kissler acknowledged that Italian Bistro "basically beat us to court," and said that a counter complaint would be issued. "We are preparing an answer and a counterclaim which will charge infringement for their use of the Baci name, which we contend is phonetically indistinguishable from the Boccie name," Kissler said. The Italian word "baci" translates into English as the word "kiss," while the Italian word "boccie" is the name of an Italian bowling game. According to the complaint, the word "baci" has a "substantially different pronunciation and spelling in Italian" than "boccie." However, the question of trademark infringement has come about largely because of the similarity of the pronunciation of the two words by English speakers.