This is no heart-to-heart story. More like Heart v. Heart.

Heart LLC, owner of two cafés and a coffee roasting business in Portland for more than seven years, claims a new restaurant chain called Heart Pizza that opened this year has stolen part of its name.

The coffee-roasting company has gone to court to ask a federal judge to order Heart Pizza to drop or change its name. Heart LLC says it has owned an Oregon state trademark registration for the heart symbol since 2009 and has two pending applications before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Heart LLC has accused Micah Camden, the owner of the pizzeria and a regular customer of the company's Southwest Portland cafe, of falsely claiming he had permission from the coffee roaster's owners to assume part of the business name. Heart LLC also says its coffee customers will find the two names confusing.

Camden is co-founder of Blue Star Donuts, also near the cafe and pizzeria, and Little Big Burger. He sold the burger company to a national investor in 2015.

Camden opened Heart Pizza in late February, using a black-and-white block letter-style on the pizzeria's sign similar to the one used by Heart café. One of his pizza shops is around the corner from the café at 417 S.W. 13th Ave.

Heart Pizza argues that the two businesses look and feel entirely different, pointing out in a 43-page response that coffee doesn't mix with garlic, cheese and tomatoes. Heart Pizza scoffs at the coffee roaster's suggestion that the two businesses are in competition, noting that the café sells coffee and baked goods, along with coffee beans, T-shirts, mugs and other coffee paraphernalia while Heart Pizza sells pizza, salad, wine and beer.

The pizzeria's lawyers also say Heart café doesn't have the exclusive right to use the word "heart'' among businesses that serve food or drink.

The coffee roaster is seeking a preliminary injunction to stop the pizzeria's use of the name.

"This is such an 'open and shut' case,'' Heart LLC's lawyer Parna A. Mehrbani wrote in the motion. "'Heart Pizza' incorporates, in its entirety, the HEART mark. Also, defendants operate a competing business in the restaurant industry, in fact ... only a block and a half away from Heart's own business.''

The fact that the word "pizza" is in the other business' name does little to distinguish the restaurants, Mehrbani wrote. Similar to the café, Heart Pizza is also a small space with few tables, the café's lawyer pointed out.

Noting Camden's success with Blue Star Donuts and Little Big Burger, his planned expansion of Heart Pizza also threatens to "engulf and render irrelevant the HEART trademark'' and cause the company to lose its distinctive quality, Merhbani wrote.

The café's charges are half-baked, the pizza shop's owner countered.

"The idea that Mr. Camden, who has created several successful mini-chains of fast gourmet restaurants, would launch another fast gourmet concept by leveraging the goodwill of a coffee shop, rather than on his own track record, is evidence of (Heart LLC's) exaggerated sense of its importance, not of Mr. Camden's bad intent,'' his lawyer Steven Lovett wrote.

Heart Pizza also noted that Heart LLC waited months before filing its preliminary injunction motion, thus negating any "irreparable'' harm to its business.

"To imagine consumers deciding on a day to day basis whether to have coffee or pizza for dinner, or whether to pair coffee or pizza with a donut, ignores reality,'' Lovett wrote. "Coffee and pizza are not substitutes for each other, and coffee shops and pizzerias are not direct competitors.''

One product is nourishing; the other is not, Lovett further argued.

"Coffee is a drink mostly consumed in the morning that supplies caffeine, not nourishment,'' Lovett wrote. "Pizza is nourishing food, with no caffeine, most often served as an entrée at dinner.''

Camden chose to call his business Heart Pizza partly to reflect its charitable giving, $1 goes to charity for each pie sold, his lawyer said.

If Heart Pizza was forced to stop using its brand, it would have to close its three Heart Pizza restaurants, putting 20 to 25 employees out of work, and halt its plan to expand, Lovett wrote.

The case is pending before U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon.

-- Maxine Bernstein

mbernstein@oregonian.com

503-221-8212

@maxoregonian