INVERNESS COUNTY: It’s a tale of two rings and two very different opinions.
“I can’t tell you how many times customers have come up to me and said, ‘do you realize that someone else is selling Cape Breton rings at the mall?’” said Darryl MacLeod, the owner of MacLeod of Cape Breton Distinctive Jewellery.
MacLeod is referencing one of the centerpieces of his collection, his Cape Breton ring, which he’s been making at his Port Hood studio for almost as long as he’s been crafting and selling jewelry, a total of 43 years.
While MacLeod is a long-time creator, the former art teacher has some competition in terms of the Cape Breton ring design. Treasure Kave, a store operating out of the Port Hawkesbury Shopping Centre with a sister location in Sydney, is also selling rings with a Cape Breton emblem.
MacLeod maintains the design used in the Treasure Kave rings is identical to his. The situation reached a boiling point about a year-and-a-half ago when MacLeod hired a lawyer to issue a cease and desist letter to Treasure Kave.
After the letter was sent, MacLeod claims Treasure Kave “marginally” altered the design of their Cape Breton rings.
Treasure Kave is owned by Ron Situ, who is not only a business owner but also an educator at the NSCC Strait Area Campus. Situ said he did alter the design and that, when he originally came up with the idea to sell Cape Breton rings, he was unaware that MacLeod of Cape Breton was turning out a similar product.
“A long while ago, we stopped carrying something that had a high degree of similarity to MacLeod,” Situ said. “We didn’t know at the beginning that we were too close and too similar, and we said we didn’t want to carry something too similar to the other people. That wouldn’t be right.
“If we have something very much like what he does, we’re more than happy to take it off and apologize for it, but I think what we have is very different. Even the elements of what we have are uniquely distinct from what Mr. MacLeod carries.”
Situ said he consulted with his supplier, and the two of them put their heads together about the situation. They are of the opinion that a representation of the map of Cape Breton isn’t something over which a person can have ownership.
“Imagine Honda and Hyundai,” he said. “Both are similar cars, but you can’t say don’t put an ‘H’ on it.
“There are high degrees of differences between the two products. I don’t know why he’d think that we can’t put Cape Breton on it. It’s a map of Cape Breton.”
For MacLeod’s part, he said he’s accumulated considerable costs in legalities and copyright applications, and spent considerable time and suffered anxiety over the situation. Taking further legal action is a matter he’s mulling over, but he’s hoping to avoid that option.
“This is not about money,” MacLeod said. “It’s about theft of my intellectual property… I am not a confrontational person by nature and I have let this slide for a number of years but there comes a time when you feel so violated you just have to fight back.
“My rings were not an overnight concept. They were very much an evolution – a slow and gradual refinement over the past 30 years. There was also the marketing and promotion, most of which came as word of mouth from loyal customers.”
Situ said the situation is also a cause of stress for him. He added that he’s trying to sell a product that, like MacLeod, is intended to promote Cape Breton Island. Situ defines himself as a “proud Cape Bretoner” who has been here for almost a decade.
“We’re not trying to get rich here,” he said. “Our item is very different from Mr. MacLeod’s, but we’re both trying to do the same thing: promote Cape Breton.
“Let’s make something unique and let people judge the quality, the price, and everything else, and let people pick the best.”