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Judge denies Puck's push for injunction against steakhouse

LOS ANGELES A district judge here on Monday denied a request for a preliminary injunction filed by Wolfgang Puck in a dispute over use of the name “Wolfgang’s Steakhouse” by an eatery in Beverly Hills, Calif., but a spokesman for Puck vowed they would push forward with the lawsuit.

In May, Puck sued New York operator Wolfgang Zwiener after the opening of a Zwiener-owned Wolfgang’s Steakhouse a few blocks from Puck’s flagship Spago location and his own steakhouse, called Cut. The lawsuit charges Zwiener with trademark infringement and unfair competition, saying the customers are confused by the name and believe Zwiener’s restaurant is part of Puck’s fine-dining group.

In the lawsuit, Zwiener is also charged with violating an earlier agreement that Wolfgang’s Steakhouse locations outside of New York use Zwiener’s full name in the signage. The Beverly Hills location, the operator’s first outside New York, minimizes the tagline “by Wolfgang Zwiener.”

Puck sought a preliminary injunction to stop Zwiener from using the “Wolfgang’s Steakhouse” name while the operators hashed it out in court, but that request was denied Monday by a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

Puck officials said the lawsuit would proceed as planned.

“We’re disappointed with the preliminary ruling, but it was just that, a preliminary ruling. We fully intend to pursue the case,” said Tom Kaplan, senior managing partner for the Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining Group, based in Las Vegas.

Zwiener also intends to proceed with his counter lawsuit against Puck, said his attorney Joel Schmidt.

In that suit, Zwiener, a former head waiter at the famed Peter Luger Steakhouse in Brooklyn, N.Y., alleges that Puck violated their earlier agreement not to take the issue to court.

The Wolfgang’s Steakhouse location in Beverly Hills is a joint venture between W Steak Corp., Zwiener’s company that operates two of the steakhouses in New York, and WDI International, which operates more than 200 restaurants worldwide, including Tony Roma’s brand restaurants, Il Mulino Tokyo, and Taormina in Waikiki Beach, Hawaii.

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