Heavy Mate

There has been an interesting saga going on in the world of big wave surfing and a contest at Mavericks. The contest was run by Quiksilver for a few years in the early 2000's, then picked up by a San Francisco-based group called Mavericks Surf Ventures. They were accepted at first, even employing Mavericks pioneer Jeff Clark to help run the event and assemble the surfers. The writing was on the wall when Jeff (who has a reputation for being a pain in the ass, but is a legend nonetheless) split from MSV a year or so ago.

A few months ago a group of Mavs surfers joined together to takeover the event permit and run it themselves.They were awarded the permit last week to the obvious chagrin on MSV, who has been managing the event as well as running a clothing line associated with the legendary break. Surfline published this article (http://www.surfline.com/surf-news/new-group-gets-mavericks-contest-permit_49135/) in which an interesting quote from the MSV CEO surfaces:

The reality is that no one else could attempt to produce a contest at Mavericks without running afoul of MSV's rights associated with the company's intellectual property, and with its relationships with sponsors, vendor partners, and various agencies. For example, MSV holds the Federally-registered trademark to "The Mavericks Surf Contest." Any other surfing event held at Mavericks would infringe on that trademark, cause confusion in the marketplace, and dilute the power and recognition of The Mavericks Surf Contest(R).

Now, I am not lawyer, and he is, but this seems rather preposterous. You buy the IP rights for the name of a place that has existed and been canonized by the surf community for decades and nobody can run a contest there? And how about the dilution of the recognition of the Mavericks Surf Contest? It's like the owner of a shitty restaurant that goes out of business suing the owner of the restaurant that now occupies its place for taking away his business. It's like the chicken and egg, except not at all. If MSV had run a good event and involved the surfers and their desires things would likely have worked out. The surfers didn't want MSV to fail because they were a bunch of non-surfers from SF, that just made the point easier to make after the fact. The sad fact is that this will end up in court, costing the state and the new contest organizers money, litigating a case in which the only wrongdoing is bad business.