By Jane Smith
In a battle for control of the “Old School Square” name, Delray Beach says it is more entitled to use the moniker than the cultural center’s ousted operators who want to make it their trademark.
The city has owned the property for more than 33 years; Old School Square has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1988; and the city continues to hold cultural and community events there, its outside counsel wrote in an objection filed Nov. 21 with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Old School Square’s longtime former tenant, the Old School Square Center for the Arts, Inc., applied to trademark the Old School Square name in November 2021, three months after the City Commission voted to terminate the nonprofit organization’s lease effective Feb. 9 of this year.
“The [former tenant] has no substantiated intent to resume use of the applied-for services in connection with the [trademark],” wrote outside counsel Anne Flanigan of the Fort Lauderdale office of Weiss, Serota, Helfman, Cole & Bierman law firm.
A spokesperson for the nonprofit organization did not respond to an email request for comment from The Coastal Star. The organization has until Dec. 31 to file a response with the Patent and Trademark Office to the city’s trademark challenge.
The nonprofit sued the city over its termination about the same time as the trademark application was filed. The organization has continued to raise funds for cultural and arts programs, though not specifically for ones at the Old School Square campus.
The nonprofit canceled all its events and classes on the campus as of Oct. 1, 2021, according to the city’s filing.
The nonprofit listed its address in the trademark application as 51 N. Swinton Ave. — Old School Square’s address — even though the organization had been told it would have to leave the campus in February 2022.
The Old School Square campus is no longer the nonprofit’s physical address, according to the filing.
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