Myrtle Beach golf cart companies with similar names battle over trademark, reputation
This story is among the most Myrtle Beach-esque tales of all tales, and it’s about as confusing as anything at the beach could possibly get.
Two Myrtle Beach companies that rent and sell golf carts with virtually the same name are in a legal battle over trademark infringement and which company had its name first. Sounds simple, right?
Not really.
The two companies are called Myrtle Beach Golf Carts and Myrtle Beach Golf Cart Rentals & Sales.
Both of them claim to have opened before the other. Both of them claim they deserve the right to keep their name. And both believe the other company is endangering their reputation and profits, according to legal filings.
The legal back-and-forth started last fall but escalated late last month when Myrtle Beach Golf Carts owners Mark and Christian Sichitano sued Myrtle Beach Golf Cart Rentals & Sales. They allege the latter company is illegally using the former’s trademarked name and reputation for its own gain.
Myrtle Beach Golf Cart Rentals & Sales is owned by Jamie Hysner, who lives in Myrtle Beach, according to his LinkedIn profile. He also two other companies called Vacation Gear Rentals and Vacation Linen Services, according to LinkedIn.
Normally, businesses that offer the same type of services, even with similar names, exist alongside each other just fine. Myrtle Beach has dozens of mini golf courses with only slightly different offerings and plenty of breakfast places advertising themselves as some kind of “House of Pancakes.”
But when it comes to these two golf cart businesses, the battle escalated to cease-and-desist letters and a 15-page lawsuit with no fewer than 10 exhibits attached as evidence in just the first filing.
Where the debate began
Myrtle Beach Golf Carts was incorporated as an LLC in April 2014, according to the Sichitanos’ lawsuit and records from the S.C. Secretary of State’s office. It started out with about a dozen golf carts for rent and for sale. Eight years later, the company now has 230 golf carts for rent and more than 100 for sale.
Over the last eight years, the Sichitanos say, they have developed a strong standing in the Myrtle Beach community and a reputation permanently attached to their company’s name, according to the lawsuit they’ve filed against Hysner’s competing company.
“The Myrtle Beach Golf Carts mark has come to signify high quality of golf cart rentals and sales services and acquired incalculable distinction, reputation and goodwill exclusively belonging to Plaintiff,” the lawsuit said.
But Hysner claims that Myrtle Beach Golf Cart Rentals & Sales has been using its name and trademark since 2007. Secretary of State records show the business was not incorporated until Sept. 17, 2021.
The Sun News left a message with Myrtle Beach Golf Cart Rentals & Sales, but Hysner has not responded.
Two years after the Sichitanos set up shop, Myrtle Beach Golf Carts registered its first trademark, according to Secretary of State records. The 2016 trademark featured an image of a golf cart, the words “MB Golf Carts & Scooters” and featured the company’s phone number. Then, in November 2021, the company filed for a second trademark with a similar image, but this time with just “MB Golf Carts” as the text.
However, before filing for that second trademark, the Sichitanos became aware of Hysner’s business operating with a similar name.
On Nov. 16, 2021, an attorney for the Sichitanos’ Myrtle Beach Golf Carts sent a cease-and-desist letter to Hysner. The letter demanded Hysner’s company immediately discontinue use of the Myrtle Beach Golf Cart Rentals & Sales name, or anything else similar, immediately.
“Your unlawful use creates the false impression that your goods and services originate from Myrtle Beach Golf Carts LLC ... so as to deceive customers or to cause confusion or mistake as to the origin or affiliation of your company’s services and Myrtle Beach Golf Carts LLC’s services,” attorney Clare Goodwin wrote in the letter.
Two days later, on Nov. 18, 2021, Hysner filed a trademark application for his company’s name and logo. While Hysner’s company name is similar to Myrtle Beach Golf Carts, the logo uses different graphics, font styles and arrangement of the visual elements. That trademark is currently pending.
On Nov. 22, 2021, Hysner sent his own cease-and-desist letter to the Sichitanos, legal documents show. It was signed by himself and not an attorney.
Christian Sichitano said she couldn’t believe it when she saw the letter.
“I didn’t think an attorney would ever write something like that, given the facts and the inconsistencies and in what he was portraying,” she said. “I was just shocked at the whole situation.”
Dates of operations
Hysner attached a copy of his trademark application to that letter, which is where he claimed he had been using the trademark continuously since at least 2007. If that were the case, under trademark common law, he would have superior rights to his company’s name over Myrtle Beach Golf Carts, which had only been in operation since 2014, according to legal filings.
“Your use is a violation of my company’s rights,” Hysner wrote in his cease-and-desist letter. “We are demanding that you immediately stop using” the name Myrtle Beach Golf Carts or “any other name or mark confusingly similar.”
But the dates on Hysner’s documents means his company was either operating without a legal designation as a business for more than a decade, or it didn’t exist at all until last fall, the Sichitanos’ lawsuit argues.
Christian Sichitano said if Myrtle Beach Golf Cart Rentals & Sales existed for as long as Hysner claims, she would have known about it. She said she didn’t learn of Hysner’s company until last fall when a family friend told her about it. Since then, she said she’s had dozens of customers come in asking if the two businesses are affiliated.
“We tried to contact him and he refused to talk to us,” she said, adding that they didn’t want to have to get an attorney involved, instead hoping to just “try to work this out.”
“But he just wouldn’t talk to us,” Christian Sichitano said.
A visit to the address listed on the website for Myrtle Beach Golf Cart Rentals & Sales took a reporter to a warehouse district far from the tourist spots that normally attract golf cart rentals.
A truck with the company logo for Myrtle Beach Golf Cart Rentals & Sales was parked outside. The warehouse did not have any external advertising that would indicate a business operated there. Nearby were two cars with the name of Hysner’s other company, Vacation Gear Rentals.
Myrtle Beach Golf Cart Rentals & Sales’ website said it has about 10 golf carts available and does free pickup and delivery around town.
In response to Hysner’s letter, Goodwin, the Sichitanos’ lawyer, said they did not believe he had been using the name and trademark since 2007, so the Sichitanos should control the trademark under South Carolina common law rules. The Sichitanos also filed a trademark application for the company’s full name “Myrtle Beach Golf Carts” on March 17.
Christian Sichitano said up until now, she didn’t think it was necessary to trademark the full name. In eight years of business, they’d never had a problem.
“It never crossed my mind that this was even a possibility, to be quite honest,” she said.
Hysner has not discontinued use of his company’s name and trademark, and neither have the Sichitanos. Both companies are currently in operation.
What’s next
In the lawsuit, Myrtle Beach Golf Carts accused Myrtle Beach Golf Cart Rentals & Sales of attempting “to pass off” its services as that of the former company’s “with the intent to deceive and defraud the public.”
Court filings show Hysner and his businesses have been sued several times before, including in at least one case involving unpaid debts to an attorney’s office. That’s what leads Christian Sichitano to believe that if something isn’t done to permanently separate her business’ name from Hysner’s, she could end up losing money.
The Sichitanos want the courts to permanently bar Hysner’s from using in any form, Myrtle Beach Golf Cart Rentals & Sales. The Sichitanos also want Hysner’s “unlawfully obtained profits” and attorneys’ fees.
“By virtue of Defendant’s bad faith and unlawful acts towards Plaintiff, there is significant risk that Plaintiff’s business will be severely tarnished by the time a judgment on the merits is rendered,” the lawsuit said in its request for a preliminary injunction ahead of a formal jury trial.
This story was originally published April 7, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
